Once I Was You
by ladyFrost2
Summary: Bruce isn't really sure who he is anymore. And the little psychiatrist shaped 'problem' he picked up in Arkham isn't helping. Could be read as a sequel to the movie. Sadly they don't make films like this much. NOW COMPLETE.
1. Deal in a dying day

In the few moments that he has now for reflection he wonders "Why did I go back?" There was, after all, nothing there that he could have wanted.

Only his revenge and perhaps, after that, justice, although the justice, as with the revenge would have been his own sweet kind.

But it was late and he was tired and more than tired even, more in the way of exhausted, both in body and in mind. The train which had become the coffin of Ra's Al Ghul was still burning, a fiery funeral pyre amongst the wreckage, rapidly consuming the broken body of his one time friend and mentor. A very little further away, the last place that had held the living memories of his parents was also burning.

The night sky dropped a gentle rain of grey ash and soot down softly on the city. Some of the blood on his face was his own. He could have called it a day.

Instead he had turned and walked away from the ruins of the overhead rails, the twisted metal of the fallen pylons, and set his face grimly back towards the Narrows.

He had accepted that the Narrows was now in all likelihood irretrievably lost, that order, such as it had been, would now be impossible to impose on the winding streets and the collapsing piles of old tenement buildings. He liked to think of himself as a pragmatist. But there was one thing that he could not believe was irretrievably lost quite yet. One last loose end to tie up.

A dark oily rain began to fall as he approached the gateway tower of the bridge. He took satisfaction in the weather, it matched his mood. Gave him an excuse to pull the black cloak tighter around him, to cover his face from the world.

On the other side of the slick current, out on the island, there was now a near total silence, broken by outbreaks of shouting, and, worse than the shouting, the occasional terrified scream.

He could not imagine what it was like out there in the blackness for those whose mental worlds had been altered by the drug. Or rather, he could imagine, he could remember, but he chose not to. He had felt the vicious grip of the terror on even his stern mind as he had made his way through those twisted streets the last time, and he had been free from hallucination and nightmare. Apart of course from those he had brought there with him.

In the cover of the mist it was easy enough to make his way across the river without attracting undue attention. He already knew where he would need to look. The rooftops made his roundabout path across the crowded streets less complicated, most people too absorbed in their own private terrors to look up.

Moving from ledge to ledge the physical demands of the work on his battered body took him out of the chaos that he knew his mind was all too rapidly becoming. He kept moving to maintain momentum as much as anything, not to have to stop and analyse his actions.

The flickering light of the Narrow's failing power supply reminded him of old movies he had watched as a child, the hero going behind enemy lines to rescue a fallen comrade. Was that really what he thought he was doing? Mercifully the concentration required in reaching his goal, the unpredictable slip and slide of the smooth wet tiles, spared him the need to decide exactly what he would do when he arrived there.

Sooner than he had thought, and far sooner than he really wanted it to in truth, the gothic framework and spires of Arkham appeared out of the fog. He studied the outside of the building from his perch on the roof.

The doors were mostly thrown open, not the least of the reasons for the loss of the Narrows was the impact of a couple of hundred high security criminal mad men slipping quietly out of the asylum. The argument that he would be doing a lot more good for the city by rounding up all of them and ensuring that they were safely guarded could be put aside for a time. He was just about done with working for the public good today. Now he had something else to do.

On the street outside there was no sign of life. The grim reputation of Arkham seemed to keep even the terror-crazed population of the Narrows at bay. It had never been a building that people went into willingly. The open doorway looked more like that of a tomb than of a respected medical institution.

Inside, the once immaculate reception area was filled with the signs of panic and of the hasty escape of staff from behind their desks. White pages of pamphlets and countless pages of closely typed records now freed forever from their files were spread over the floor.

He stopped briefly, struck by the smell, the disinfectant, the slight hint of damp, the ammonia, like any hospital anywhere. But here there was something else as well, something that stuck in the throat, even in this once bright and welcoming reception. It was the heavy doors, the security alarms, the restraints visible at the rear of the glass panelled box from which the receptionists had greeted visitors.

Until that afternoon. When all that had stopped, the bright candy coating of Gotham finally peeling back to reveal the open and infected wound concealed beneath.

It had been a long time since he had been able to see anything but the wound. And he thought that part of the reason that he was there, seemingly alone in that vast building, was because of a suspicion that he might not be the only one who saw the truth. Ra's Al Ghul had seen the wound, but he had not thought the body worth saving. But then Ra's Al Ghul was never a medical man.

Behind the reception desk a notice board bearing the names and the photographs of the institution's staff watched over the devastation. At the top on a row of its own, the picture of Jonathan Crane regarded him with a steady amused stare. In grainy black and white it looked like a police mugshot. All Crane needed was to be holding up the card displaying his reference number under his chin. There was no hint of madness visible in the grey eyes and after a few moments he turned away from it and walked into the hospital itself.

He made his way cautiously through the ultraviolet half light of the corridors, checking at each intersection, ensuring that there was no-one following him, no eyes peering through the observation windows in the doors, no camera moving in the high corners of the ceilings. His steps echoed on the bare floors.

He began to feel all the sick fantasies of the paranoid crowding in on him, the building was too hot, too noiseless, there were far too many opportunities in these walls for secret surveillance. It was very dark in those rooms without emergency lighting, easy to believe that some of the recent inhabitants were still there, sat motionless in the dark, waiting.

When he reached the turn into the administrative part of the building he was, although he would not have admitted it, relieved. He'd seen enough tonight.

This corridor was more homely, there were carpets at least, and a little colour on the walls. And looking at the carpet more closely there were traces, smears of some sort of moisture, be it the dirty rain from the streets outside or something more unpleasant. He stooped forward, peeled off a glove and touched the back of his hand to the mark. It was still damp.

And now he began for the first time to wonder what the hell he was doing here. There were easier things he could be doing right now. Things that weren't so likely to end in injury, or madness, or something worse.

He wasn't afraid. Yet there was something, a tightening of the throat, the sound of his heart loud in his chest, throbbing in his ears. He hadn't felt like this for a long time and it was better not to remember when.

A few metres further along the corridor he could see the door he was looking for. The trail of scuffmarks turned sharply into it, and although the door was partly shut no light came from the opening. He hadn't ever thought this far ahead. So he stepped swiftly up to the heavy door and flung it back wide open. He'd taken his antidote. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

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So, what do you think?

More coming shortly, but please do review if you have read this far and enjoyed the experience. Or hated it. Whichever.


	2. Slow motion moves me

I hope you all liked the first part. I'm sorry that my wee spiel at the bottom got kinda mixed in with the story. Don't worry, it probably won't happen again . . .

I should say that I don't really own anything, least of all Batman and Dr Crane. I owe everything I own to the student loan company. Please don't sue me!

And do please review if you read this and enjoyed it/if you want more/if you have things to pick at. It'll only take a minute. And it'll make me very happy. You'll have good karma . . .

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And he was ready. Ready for anything, except . . . He paused there, on the threshold of the room which had until so recently served as the Director's office, the poisoned heart of Arkham Asylum. The room was in almost complete darkness, the only light coming in from behind him and falling greyly down from the window, one of the rare few in that building without bars.

He hadn't known what he wanted to find. He'd thought of the Scarecrow sat frozen and calm on the spinning chair behind the desk, turning to face him as he opened the door. Waiting for him. He'd thought that he would be expected.

He hadn't anticipated the vacancy, the absolute stillness of an empty room. It took the edge off the sharp force of rage which was driving him forward, pushed him back onto his heels. In the quiet he took stock of the situation, and it was in the silence that he realised that he was not in fact on his own. The rough breathing that sounded so loud now in his ears was mixed with the sound of another.

Moving gracefully, cautiously, holding the pain of his injuries back, he stepped towards the desk, his gun tight in his hand. His heart was making his chest shake; his pupils were wide in the gloom. And there, in the dark pool of shade directly beneath the window was lying what he had been looking for.

The slim body was very still but he could see that the ribcage was moving raggedly up and down with every dragging breath. The Scarecrow's face was turned towards the wall, obscured by the shadows.

"Get up." His voice was harsh, shocking even to him in the hush of the abandoned building.

The Scarecrow remained lying limp and motionless on the floor of the office, even the rhythm of his shallow breathing unaltered. But there was no point in taking any unnecessary risks. He'd seen enough of the Scarecrow in action to know that that seemingly slight figure had more than one trick up his sleeve. And the thought of vengeance, of closure, of an ultimate end to the nightmare string of events that had shaped the last couple of weeks, well, that was a sore temptation.

What was it that he'd said to the man that he still thought of as Ducard? "I won't kill you. But I don't have to save you." But he owed nothing to the Scarecrow. Or to Dr Jonathan Crane for that matter.

So he took the safety catch off the gun, the click loud enough to make him jump a little. And he moved close enough to the prone figure to turn the body over with the sole of his foot. It came over easily enough, his head lolling back loosely on the neck, the arms falling to drape at his sides. And the face that was looking up at him was not the face of the Scarecrow, the masked creature who had destroyed the Narrows and so nearly destroyed the mind of Rachel Dawes, but that of Dr Crane.

He looked so young. There were angry red burn marks striped across one cheek, a blue black smudge under one closed eye. His mask was gripped tightly in one clenched hand. The long hair was sodden wet, although it was too dark to tell if this was with rain or with blood. He was terribly pale. The orange jumpsuit that he had been wearing when he was freed from Arkham was torn and stained now, there were places where blood had soaked through from wounds concealed below the fabric. Beneath the near translucent lids his eyes moved ceaselessly.

And for a second, just for one brief second, Bruce felt sorry. Sorry that the price of saving the city had been partly paid by the mind of the brilliant but sick young psychiatrist. Sorry that Batman had given the boy a dose of his own medicine and then cast him aside, leaving him lost and alone in his madness with no antidote.

It was those moments of violence, necessary but regrettable, in which he distanced himself furthest from the things that he did while wearing the mask. He felt a sick feeling deep down in the pit of his stomach. But he was still wearing the mask.

So he knelt down beside the unconscious Dr Crane, put the mouth of the gun very gently against the side of his head, took a long deep breath and struck him hard across the face with his open hand.

"Wake up." he snarled, putting far more anger than he was truly feeling into his tone.

Dr Crane's eyes sprang open, wide and as blue and surprised as they had been the first time he had looked down into them. When Batman had questioned him before, directly after he had sprayed the toxin into his face, he had watched the intelligence go out of those eyes like sand flowing out of an hourglass. Now there was only vacancy, vacancy and a little fear.

Bruce felt a strange sense of loss, loss at the pointless waste of a superb mind. He was no expert in the field of psychiatry but he understood enough to appreciate the high regard Dr Crane had been held in. And now it was all gone, wiped as cleanly as if he had already pulled the trigger.

"You were no innocent." he said out loud.

He knew all about the Mob kickbacks, the criminals serving a cushy term in Arkham's more luxurious accommodation, criminals conveniently declared insane by none other than Arkham's own Director. He remembered the fear seared into Rachel's sweet face, the grinning mask of the Scarecrow as he flicked the lighter onto Batman's alcohol soaked costume. Dr Crane had made his own bed. And now it was time for him to lie in it. It would be the merciful thing to do.

Crane's long eyelashes sank down again, casting feathery patches of shade on the high white cheeks. He sighed, and then, softly, so softly that Batman was forced to lean forward to catch the words, he murmured "Have you come to finish the job?"

The voice was weak, but there was no mistaking the tired note of sanity. Crane might only be surfacing briefly from the deep well of his madness but right now his head was above the water. His eyes were open again, looking straight up into the Batmask.

"The Bat Man." Even in this condition Dr Crane was unable to resist a spark of sarcasm. "So glad that you could be here."

Bruce looked out through the holes of the mask and saw only weary resignation in the blue eyes that evenly gazed into his. The man was in no condition to fight but that was no reason to move the gun away from his head. They moved together as Crane painfully scraped the last remnants of his dignity and pride back into place and struggled into a sitting position. His back was against the wall now and his mouth moved to sketch the outline of a smile.

"What happened to you?" It was Bruce who asked the question, not Batman, the voice was his own, seeming strange to his own ears in that outfit, in that place.

"Your girlfriend," Crane looked down. "Miss Dawes. She hurt my face."

"And the rest?"

A fleeting expression of terror, terror mixed with disgust, crossed the psychiatrist's strained face. "Some of the inmates remembered me."

Bruce could imagine.

"It's very dark in here." The soft voice had a pleading sound. "I was afraid out there. Afraid I wouldn't find my way back." His eyes were downcast, his lips trembling.

And Bruce knew what he meant. Knew that he was not just talking about the sanctuary of the asylum, the safety of his own building and office. Bruce too had been afraid like that, afraid that he would not be able to find his way back. Afraid that one day he would come to take off the mask and find nothing underneath.

Dr Crane twisted awkwardly round to look up at him. His eyes were wide with something more than fear, with a kind of longing. The vacancy that Bruce had seen in his face when he first woke up was starting to creep back. Each rasping breath was accompanied by a slight wince, a sign of the weakness that he was struggling to overcome.

"So," he said. "Let's do it."

Batman looked at him without expression.

"Do it now." Crane said sharply, and his voice was suddenly urgent. He looked down at the hand holding the mask, shuddered and tossed it away from him. "Finish it. I'm tired."

He sounded petulant and, for all his academic achievements, to Bruce he resembled a spoilt child. But this was far more serious than that. He knew what Crane wanted.

The doctor's face was pale but calm. There was no doubting his sanity at that moment. His eyes were clear and in them Bruce saw no trace of fear, only a subdued exultation. This was no surrender to despair, this was a coldly considered logical decision.

For the Scarecrow to be truly finished with it seemed that the life of Jonathan Crane would have to be extinguished as well.

So it was Batman who held the heavy gun level on Crane's forehead. But it was Bruce who met Crane's calm look, who held his haunted eyes with his own, who put his free hand down to cover the one that had held the mask. He held his breath for a fleeting second.

Crane said, very gently, his voice entirely steady, "I don't want to die in the dark."

And Bruce, ignoring everything but the pain in his own chest stood up, keeping the gun trained on the doctor's head and backed slowly across the room, watching the still figure with every step he took. Through the semidarkness he could detect no change in Crane's expression, no sign of regret or remorse. This was the only way. He wished that his revenge could have tasted a little sweeter.

With his free hand he reached for the light switch. And as his hand connected with it he folded up in pain. The shock jarred every part of his body, his nerve endings raw and screaming. His vision flashed vivid green and white, the wounds he had received earlier seemed to burn into his skin.

Even in the midst of his agony he could hear the mocking voice of Ducard, still taunting him from a place beyond death. "Bruce, always mind your surroundings."

As he dropped helplessly to the floor he heard the external doors of the asylum slamming shut one by one. It seemed the emergency generator was still more than capable of powering Dr Crane's computerized operating system.

He laid there in the doorway, the pain and the shock so severe that he could not speak, could not even move. Crane stepped lightly up to his prone form and reached down to pick up the gun from his side.

"One good turn deserves another, don't you think?" His tone was cheerful, businesslike. He crouched down beside him, smiling happily. The burns on his cheek contorted and twisted as he spoke. Bruce closed his eyes.

He felt the barrel of the gun slowly brush across his cheek and the muzzle finally come to rest against the top of his head. He couldn't believe that he had been so stupid. Batman wouldn't come to save him now, he thought wryly.

And when, a few minutes later he opened his eyes again Crane had gone and the room was empty.


	3. Getting up to fall back down

Well, thanks for the reviews. I'm glad that people seem to be enjoying it so far. As to whether or not this is going to end up slash or not, who knows? They make the decisions, not me. I'm more by the way of a steering committee.

A shorter installment this time but more to follow soon I'm sure.

Owning people is wrong. Besides, I wouldn't like to be the one to try it with either of these two.

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"Why do we fall?"

Alfred's voice was so clear that Bruce could almost believe he was there in the room. He knew the answer only too well. And he knew that he had just made an outrageous mistake, a mistake that could easily have cost him his life.

For the last few months he had successfully denied the thing that was inexorably happening to him, had chosen to ignore all the feelings that he could suppress. Yet slowly, surely, with every time he descended to the Batcave and changed into the costume, the part of him that went out through the archway to Gotham, the man who was behind the black mask, was becoming more distinct. Bruce didn't really know who the Batman was anymore.

Once upon a time Batman had been just Bruce, an ordinary man wearing a cape and a mask to try to make things better in his city. To fight injustice, to stand between the weak and the powerful, to bring justice and balance out from the chaos. But the things that Bruce wanted and the things that Batman wanted, those things were no longer the same. It was Batman who made the decisions when the mask was over his eyes. It was Batman who spoke for him when he would not have known what to say.

And Batman would never have made the mistake that Bruce hadbarely survived. Bruce had tried, for the first time, to be himself in the Batsuit, to push Batman aside for a few minutes. And it had come damn close to getting him killed.

He was trying to play too many roles, stretching himself too thin. Bruce Wayne, ostentatious billionaire playboy and Batman, the crusading vigilante of Gotham's dark sky. He didn't know how much more of himself he was prepared to give up in order to maintain the twin facades of his public life. Deception was a powerful weapon, but as with any powerful weapon the kick that it gave the wielder could be deadly.

The pure anger that drove Batman on through the endless night of Gotham's underworld was his greatest strength. And it was also the force that could eventually destroy him.

"To conquer fear you must become fear."

Ducard's words came back to him from a past that seemed further away even than the high coldmountaintopswhere he had trained. And truly, he had indeed become as one with the darkness. But even he could not remain there in the darkness for all of his time. All of these things, the things that he was now really afraid of, he had kept pressed down far inside, and now, trapped within the sinister walls of Gotham's rotting Asylum the cracks were beginning to show.

But he did know one thing. In the dangerous streets where Batman prowled at night there was no room for weakness. Bruce Wayne, such as he was, had no place there. If there was one thing that he had gained so far then it was the strength, the strength and the will to do what was necessary.

And when he got painfully to his feet and hobbled stiffly to rest his aching body on the doorframe it was Batman who looked out through the narrow slits of the mask. There was work still to be done before the long night ended.

"Why do we fall, sir?"

"So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

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So? Please review if you have enjoyed/couldn't stand this story so far. And all points of view in between also welcome . . . . What would you like to happen next? (although the next bit is already written and being tidied up so don't expect too much to change . . .)


	4. Under this bare light bulb

They're back!

Thanks for reviewing, hope that the following meets with your approval. Do let me know either way.

I reiterate, people are not property. I don't own them. But someone else does. No fair . . .

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Surprisingly it was easy enough to follow the route Crane had taken through the hospital. The psychiatrist was making no effort to cover his tracks, either because he was moving too quickly for that or because he had no fear of pursuit. Or, thought Batman grimly, because he was too far gone to be worried about a little thing like that.

Whatever Crane had been faking, and Batman gave him full credit for an allstar performance, the wounds that he could see through the tears in the jumpsuit looked real enough. When the doctor had mentioned his former inmates the look of terror that had crossed his face was genuine, of that he was sure.

He had no idea why Crane hadn't killed him when he had the opportunity. Arkham was an easy place to let the imagination run riot. Perhaps they were the only people in the asylum after all and Crane hadn't wanted the noise to attract attention. Which was one theory that he chose not give too much thought to, one madman was more than enough for him.

Of course Crane might be deliberately leading him somewhere. If anyone knew all the secret ins and outs of this maze like building it was Dr Crane. With all the strong steel security doors now locked on the outside he had no real appetite for leaving those floors that were equipped with windows, albeit heavily barred and safety glass filled ones.

Long corridors turned and twisted away from him with no distinguishing features visible along them to help him navigate. Once or twice he was sure that he had crossed his own tracks, and he began to wonder if Crane had successfully shaken him off after all.

There was something else troubling him. He didn't like the way that Crane had referred to Rachel as "his girlfriend". Last time he had seen Crane he had been there to rescue Rachel. The explanation could be as simple as that. But Dr Crane was too smart to say anything without good reason. The thought made him feel uneasy.

The building itself was making him nervous. Although the emergency lights provided some illumination it was of a kind so pale and so greenish that eerie shadows filled every corner. There was the occasional clang and gasping creak, like the aging timbers of some abandoned warship drying out in the night air.

Only the sense of a pressing duty which was as yet unfulfilled kept Batman from turning around and heading for the clear pure air of the roof. Arkham's corridors smelled of madness and grief and terror. He could see why the Scarecrow had felt so at home there.

Then, far ahead of him he caught a gleam of light as a door opened and closed, and he knew that he was still on the scent and that Crane had not yet eluded him.

When he reached the doorway he hesitated for a moment. Behind the opening a narrow flight of grey steps descended into utter darkness. If anything the smell of despair was stronger there and a draught of unhealthily cold air was blowing up from whatever lay below.

From far below there came the sound of a door slamming and the static hum of some kind of electrical equipment being kicked into life.

Batman paused for only a second longer before beginning to make his way down the stair. Crane obviously knew the building well enough to run down it's stairwells in total blackness but he found that the steps were narrow and uneven and he slipped more than once. There was no handrail and the intermittent gaps between the stairs caused his breath to catch in his throat with the sudden shock of the fall.

At the bottom a short dirty passageway led into a wider hall, poorly lit and filled with shadows. The walls were lined with metal cell doors, each with the now familiar narrow window for observation purposes. But there were no windows in the dark stone walls. Only a vent, which was spewing out great waves of icy air from some place deep below the streets of the Narrows.

It was terribly terribly cold.

The rushing noise of the vent drowned out any other sound. Crane could have been stood right behind him and he wouldn't have been able to hear a thing. He felt certain that this place didn't feature on any of the public blueprints of Arkham Asylum.

Nothing could have persuaded him to look through any of the little windows in the doors. Whatever it was that Crane had been doing down here could stay a secret for now. He would tell the police about it in the morning, let them come down here when it was light outside and there was somewhere more wholesome to go to, away from this horror. Assuming that the police would ever make it back into the Narrows.

At the furthest end of the hall there was another door. This one was standing ajar. Silently, although such caution seemed meaningless in the ceaseless roar of the vent, he approached the narrow archway and peered around the edge. He was shivering in the damp cold air of the cellar.

Crane was standing under a single flickering light bulb, his face alternately lit up and cast into shadow. The small room was lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, shelves filled with what Batman realised were drug packets. On the floor a small black duffle bag was half filled with boxes and sheets of blister packaging. Behind Crane on the bench that ran along the back wall of the room Batman could see the sacking mask laid in a crumpled heap.

The doctor's face was a curious mixture of satisfaction and nervous energy. Hands moving fast, picking things off the shelves seemingly at random in his urgent rush to fill the bag. He never even heard the door opening until it was too late.

Batman stepped into the room. Paused.

"Can I help you?" Crane sounded officious, kindly but abstracted. "You must have stumbled onto the wrong level. Visitors don't tend to come down here much."

And whatever it was that he had anticipated finding this definitely was not it. He was horribly unsettled by the normality that Crane seemed to be investing this encounter with.

"We don't encourage people to wander around the wards." The doctor moved forward a little, flapping gently with his hands, a smile fixed on his face. His voice was soft, reasonable. Mildly annoyed at having been disturbed. "Some of the people who stay here are really not all that nice you know."

Batman looked into Crane's eyes, tried to see past the bright and breezy exterior. And looked down into a deep bottomless well of madness.

Whoever, whatever Crane had been before the toxin took hold of his fertile brain, however close to madness he had come in the past, this was the real thing. There was as much feeling in the psychiatrist's bright blue eyes as he had once seen in those of a shark closing in for the kill.

Crane took another small step towards him. "Come along now." he said gently. He was still smiling the bright glassy smile of a sideshow marionette. "It's time for you to go back upstairs."

And Batman jumped out of the way just in time to send Crane crashing to the floor with the momentum of his movement. The body jerked twice and then lay unnaturally still.

At the end of the doctor's outflung arm the needle of a slim black syringe glinted repetitively under the flash of the swinging bulb. His glasses had come off and slid across the floor to rest under the bench. The force with which he had hit the concrete had knocked him unconscious. Although the amount of dark blood that was dried onto the back of his jumpsuit suggested that the impact was not the only thing that had had that effect.

Once bitten twice shy, Batman thought as he reached down for his gun.

But crouching down on the floor beside the insensible figure, gun resting lightly on the tangled mass of hair, he felt a weary sensation of _déjà vu_ mounting up in his mind. The slight body looked so fragile. So frail. To him Crane still seemed just a boy. There was so much promise there, so stupidly wasted.

And although he knew Crane to be a cold calculating criminal who was without any sense of pity or compassion for the people that he had hurt, he still couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. He was a judge, not an executioner.

It made no sense to him but inside himself he knew there were parts of Crane that did not deserve to die like that, lying on the cold floor of Arkham's deepest basement. When he had looked into his face that first night, the psychiatrist's head thrown back in wild terror, he had seen something more than just the crazy fear of a madman.

He had seen a frightened boy looking up at him. And he had turned away from him. This time it didn't seem that that was going to be an option.

For now, and as crazy as it seemed to him, it looked as if he was going to have to take care of the Scarecrow's alter ego himself. Even so, the thought of trying to move the potentially soon-to-wake-up Crane was not an appealing one. Fortunately there turned out to be plenty of restraints available.

He managed, with some difficulty and a little violence, to rouse Crane enough to get him onto his feet and walking. Even semi-conscious the doctor was less than cooperative, and he was relieved that he wasn't going to have to carry him all the way to the street.

Getting back up the stairs was the worst part.

"Come on sunshine, we haven't got all night." He sounded like Alfred trying to chivvy the small boy that he had once been up the stairs to bed. Despite the gag it was still possible for him to grasp the gist of some of the things that Crane was saying. The doctor's voice didn't sound angry but the look in his blue eyes was far from tolerant.

When they finally reached the top of the stairs he stopped. Instinct told him that there was something else he was going to need. But he was damned if he was taking Crane back down those steps.

Despite his small stature the doctor made it as hard as possible for Batman to tie his carefully bound wrists tightly to the fire-bar on the door. He was amazed that the man was still fighting, despite his obvious injuries and the drug that must still be running like adrenalin through his system.

He took as little time as possible to retrieve Crane's bag from the dispensary. On a whim, and because he disliked the idea of leaving any possible trace of his presence, he threw the mask and the glasses into the duffle as well. Despite the antidote he couldn't help but shudder as he touched the mask. He had almost expected it to feel slimy.

By the time he got back up the stairs to Crane the doctor had lapsed back into oblivion. His pale face looked surprisingly innocent now that his eyes were closed. Once again Batman noticed how young he was. It seemed a shame to have to wake him up again so soon but he did it anyway.

Crane let him know exactly what he thought about it.

It was a very long journey back upstairs. Dr Crane fought him every inch of the way, his whip thin body braced stiffly against the linoleum floor. Batman began to think he should just knock him out and carry him after all. He was grateful that at least the psychiatrist had stopped talking for the moment. He had been beginning to wonder if he was going to choke on his gag.

It was a relief when he finally found his way back to Crane's office. At the far end of the administrative hall one of Arkham's few unbarred windows was letting in a couple of rays of sickly orange light. Mentally he measured the distance. Secretly he was satisfied to see that Crane had the grace to look perturbed when he realised exactly how they were going to leave the building. But by then it was too late.

In a cold shower of exploding glass Batman hit the hard surface of the pavement, temporarily lost his hold on Crane, rolled and slammed painfully against the edge of the kerb. As soon as he had regained his bearings he was up and on his feet again.

He didn't feel any disappointment when it became apparent Crane's period of consciousness had not outlasted the fall. Or, more likely, the landing.

The bag of drugs was sat neatly beside them on the side of the road. All present and correct.

Warily surveying the empty street, as much from habit as from prudence, he concluded that even the crazies were finally taking a rest for the night. At least somebody was getting some sleep, he thought. Temporarily satisfied that all was safe he sat down heavily on the pavement beside the prone form of Dr Crane and waited for the Batmobile to respond to his call.

The drive home felt endless. Crane lay perfectly still in his restraints on the seat beside him, but even in that helpless condition he knew better than to take his eyes off him for more than an instant. When he finally turned off the road onto the bumpy approach to the Batcave he could have smiled at the pure rush of relief that washed over his body.

For such a small man the unconscious Crane was surprisingly heavy. Getting him out of the side of the Batmobile without disturbing him was much more difficult than he had anticipated. Terrified that the psychiatrist would wake up before he had finished he half carried, half dragged him across the rocky floor of the cave. In the wall which had formed part of the foundations of the house there were two small storerooms, one of which was empty. Now he had a use for it.

The room had never been designed as a cell but it made a more than adequate one. When he dropped Crane into the small space, the doctor was still completely motionless. Batman looked down at him impassively as he lay slumped limply on the floor. It would have to do for now. The key turned quietly in the lock and he walked away.

He didn't remove the mask until he quite was sure that there was no way Crane could possibly see him. The tight fabric of the Batsuit peeled stickily off the scrapes and grazes that covered his skin.

When he rinsed his face the water came away a dirty red. He could feel his left eye starting to swell. All of which he could mercifully explain away with reference to the devastating fire that had swept through his home earlier that evening. He could already imagine the headlines. But it was a long time before he felt free of the contaminating touch of Arkham.

When he was finally done he staggered out from the cave into the cool welcoming touch of the night air. The smell of smoke was all around him, the massive scarred ruins of the once proud Wayne Manor now largely reduced to heaps of smouldering rubble.

Across the long sweep of moonlit lawn the cottage at the North side of the Estate boundaries had a single light burning in the window. Alfred would be glad to know he had come home.

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All comments gratefully received . . . hope you enjoyed it too . . .


	5. Take this paper cup

Bruce had slept well, a little to his surprise. The last few days had been severe ones and the end had been little better than the beginning. But Gotham was safe for the time being, and that was all he needed to know to make it possible to rest.

He'd almost managed to forget about the mad psychiatrist locked safely away in the depths of the Batcave.

It was the soft light of the dawn filtering in through the windows that woke him in the end. Shortly afterwards Alfred walked into the room, making as little noise as ever. The clink of the glass on the tray as he set it gently down on the table beside the bed. The swish of the long curtains being pulled across from the window, so that the light fell fully across the bed.

He groaned and rolled away. It seemed that even without the full armoury of Wayne Manor's cavernous pantry Alfred had still contrived to mix him some sort of disgusting early morning pickmeup.

"Good morning sir."

He groaned again, then dragged himself up into a more dignified position, resting his aching back against the headboard.

"Might I suggest that if you try this you will soon feel a little more yourself, sir?"

Accepting the proffered glass and sniffing suspiciously at its murky contents he realised that Alfred was showing no sign of making his usual discreet withdrawal from the bedroom.

"Alfred?" Bruce looked up into his butler's troubled face. "Is there something I should know?"

Alfred sighed. His expression was more than usually resigned. "I was rather hoping sir, there was something that _I_ should know."

Bruce looked blank.

"I took the liberty of doing a little . . . tidying . . . in the Batcave this morning. When it became apparent that I was . . . not alone. Did you perhaps bring something home with you last night sir?"

Bruce closed his eyes and sank back into the soft mound of pillow. Crane. Shit.


	6. Now you see your first mistake

Back again.

Thanks for reviewing. It is very much appreciated . . .

Another short chapter this time but there is a longer one coming up. Hopefully it should be ready very soon.

I still don't own much. Especially not these boys.I don't even own Alfred. Damn. I couldreally fancy a cup of tea. Guess I'll just have to get it myself . . .

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Bruce took the time to get properly dressed before he walked down across the lawns, forced reluctantly into stepping in between the still smouldering remains of his former home. The wind blew cold among the piles of ash, sending small gritty puffs of grey dust up into his face.

Most of the debris was a strange combination of huge blocks of charred masonry and smallerheaps of severely blackened furniture. Things caught his eye among the ruin and waste, familiar friendly objects that he recognised despite their strange new context. Some things he would have liked to have kept if they hadn't been too badly damaged by the blaze.

All that would have to wait a little longer. There was something he had to do first.

He still had no idea what mad force had driven him to bring Crane back with him.

Since he first put on the guise of Batman and stepped out into Gotham's streets he had seen so many things that had sickened him in one way or another. Some of those things he had done himself. Normally he didn't let such matters affect him, it was a risk, a potentially fatal risk to allow his judgement to become clouded like that.

But Crane. Crane he felt personally responsible for. The doctor had done some terrible things, things that made his stomach turn. Still, he had never, as far as Bruce knew, actually killed anyone.

And what Batman had done to him was unforgivable. Although it seemed that the doctor had been teetering close to the edge of sanity as it was. He had just administered the final push.

But he could not really blame Crane for the destruction of the Narrows. Ra's Al Ghul had deceived Crane about his intentions as easily as he had originally deceived Bruce.

Besides, how could he turn the doctor over to the police when there was even the slightest possibility that he might know something about the connection between Batman and Bruce Wayne? Certainly anything that Crane tried to imply now was likely to be dismissed as the ravings of a dangerous madman. But he couldn't afford to take that risk.

And if he couldn't turn him over to the police then what alternative was there? Even someone like Crane didn't deserve to be left out in the gutter for the former inmates of Arkham Asylum to have their way with.

In the sunlight of the morning it was easy to rationalise his decision. To forget how much of the previous night had been spent following his heart rather than his head. Because as much as he hated to admit it Crane had seriously rattled his cage.

Painful experience was teaching him that no matter how unassuming Crane's mild boyish face might look the doctor was not to be trusted. His left hand was still raw and weeping from the impact of the live current. He had fallen into the trap that had been laid for him with embarrassing speed. Crane must think him a complete fool. With just cause, Bruce thought dryly.

But he couldn't forget that when the psychiatrist had had the opportunity to kill him, back there, that last night in Arkham, he had passed it up.

The astonishing thing was that the man had survived such a strong dose of his fear toxin with any of his personality left intact at all. Anybody else would have been reduced to a drivelling wreck after a couple of hours. As had so nearly happened to Rachel . . .

And then there was the small matter of the Scarecrow.

It was exhausting just thinking about it. He should have put a bullet through the back of Crane's head when he had the chance, while the doctor was lying unconscious on the cement floor of his own dispensary. It would have saved so much time.

But it was too late for that. And now he was going to have to live with another of his mistakes.

He found his way through to the mound of wreckage marking the head of what until so very recently had been the lift shaft down to the Batcave. Long months of practice meant that setting up a secure line of rope from a solid piece of beam, letting it trail down over the edge of the hole, took him justmoments.

One quick check over his shoulder to ensure that he was completely alone, and then Bruce Wayne slowly descended into the darkness beneath the earth.

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Do please review if you enjoyed/hated this chapter/this story.

The button is just down there to your left . . . it won't take a second. Thank you . . .


	7. Was thinking that you could relate

Well, thanks for the reviewing. It makes a huge difference to my motivation knowing that someone out there somewhereis reading my story. Cheers.

So, here it is. As promised. I did say this was going to be a longer chapter, and so it is. Pack provisions if you feel it's likely you'll get peckish before the end.

There is a little swearing down yonder. If you get offended easily you can cover your eyes. Can't say I didn't warn you.

I don't own them. I'm not actually sure exactly who does right now.

Some other things that I don't own are my chapter titles, which anyone who shares my obsessions will probably have twigged to right about now. A virtual slice of delicious fruitcake (appropriate confectionary, n'est pas?) for the first correct answer. Anyway, I don't own them either. But I'm very grateful for them and will credit their author at some point very soon.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy . . .

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The transition from the warm golden light of a summer morning to the damp cool blackness of the cave was remarkably speedy with the aid of the rope. He thought he might just leave it in when the rebuilding was complete, although in time he supposed the elevator would have to be reinstated. Alfred's so farimpregnable dignity might suffer a serious breach if he was obliged to come and go by way of the cable.

Smiling at the image Bruce dropped carefully down on to the uneven stone floor of the Batcave, his well trained eyes adapting to the comparative darkness almost immediately.

Thankfully the locked door of the room into which he had so unceremoniously dumped Crane the previous night looked undisturbed. He hadn't ever imagined that he might require observation windows built into his storeroom doors. Now he regretted this lack of foresight. It would have been a comfort to him to get some idea of Crane's state of mind before he opened that door.

On the other hand it was undoubtedly a relief to have a chance to assume his night-time identity while Crane was unable to see him. The night before, even with the door locked and closed, the thought of the psychiatrist's blue eyes burning into his back had put him on edge.

Any sort of observation window would have to be constructed of one-way glass, Bruce thought, should he ever be tempted to take up imprisoning rogue medical personnel as a more serious hobby.

The black material of the Batsuit was beginning to look a little tired, a predictable yet irritating side effect of the hard use he had put it to over the past couple of days. It was time for yet another replacement. Mentally he added it to the list of things he would do when he had finished with Crane. Whatever 'finished' meant in this context. Still, the suit would serve his purposes adequately for the time being.

He leant forward, pushed his hair back out of his face and slid the mask over his head. Things were less complicated when viewed from behind those narrow slits. The sudden obvious clarity of what was, after all, a matter of simple right versus simple wrong, refreshed him like a long cold drink of iced water.

But it was water with a twist of bitter lemon. Even in the comforting clasp of the Batsuit the mere thought of having to deal with the doctor made him feel tired. Crane had a positive gift for making Batman uneasy, even when the man was unconscious, restrained and completely helpless.

Two run-ins with the Scarecrow, during only one of which Crane had triumphed, and he still mentally shuddered at the mere thought of the sackcloth mask.

He could see that Alfred's tidying had extended to removing the battered black duffle bag of medications from the seat of the Batmobile and putting it carefully on the workbench. Mercifully the drawstring neck was still tied tightly shut. Opening the bag and dealing with its contents was a task that he did not relish one little bit

Opening the cell door and dealing with its contents was another.

But he couldn't put it off forever. Reluctantly he walked across the floor to the rough brick wall surrounding the entrance to the storeroom. It seemed only polite to knock.

"Crane?" He lowered his voice a little, let a slight note of aggression slide into his tone. "Crane?"

There was no response. Either the doctor was still unconscious, or, more likely, he was sat quietly waiting on the floor of the cell, a patient spider, letting Batman make all the moves. Not a picture that Batman particularly liked.

As softly as he could he turned the key in the lock, listened for a second for any sound from within, then pushed the wooden door hard into the room. It swung a few short inches away from him before colliding robustly with a solid object and bouncing back to slam hard against the twin doorposts, narrowly missing his face.

He could have sworn out loud. Despite all of his dealings with Crane so far he had somehow already lost sight of the important fact that the doctor was a master of the unexpected.

There was still no sound from inside the cell, but the silence was a smug one. He would have preferred it if Crane had laughed out loud. At least then he might have had some idea of exactly where the man was and what he was doing.

As soon as all this was over, Batman resolved, he would pay a lot more attention to the fittings of his lair. Starting with the items of heavy furniture which his storerooms seemed to be so conveniently equipped with. And extending to some kind of wall mounted chain system.

He wondered if Crane had managed to rid himself of all or just some of the restraints. It had been stupidly remiss of him to tie the man up using the tools of the doctor's own trade. Knowing what he did about the psychiatrist's mental drift towards the dark side he imagined that Crane might have devoted some time to learning exactly how to escape from medical strapping should the need arise.

Locking the door again and simply walking away didn't seem to be on the list of options. He didn't know how long it would take for starvation and thirst to wear Crane down but that certainly wasn't the reason he had brought him back to the Batcave in the first place. It was a tempting thought though. There was time for that yet.

"Alright." He kept the irritation out of his voice. "What do you want?"

"I believe that you have something of mine."

It gave him a cold shock to realise that, although Crane had had a hard day, followed by what Batman imagined had been a less than pleasant night's rest, his voice was still perfectly controlled.

With an effort he kept his own words as level. "Nothing that I would like you to have back."

Crane sighed in an infuriatingly patient manner. "You might regret that decision. I don't think that I'll be of any use to you raving."

"What makes you think I need anything from you?"

"Well, let me think for a moment." The soft voice was insufferably superior. "You came back to the Narrows, although you must have known it would be a risk. You went of your own volition into Arkham Asylum and just happened to turn up right outside the door of my office. I gave you every opportunity to reconsider your decision, but still you followed me down into the basement. Again you had the chance to leave but when you did you decided to take me with you." Crane paused. "No, I'm sorry. I have no idea why I might think you could want something from me. You'll have to help me out."

Batman bit his lip. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just lock this door and leave you to starve." he snapped.

He could hear the smile in Crane's voice. "Oh, I don't think that you would do that. It would hardly be the honourable thing to do, now, would it?"

"Honour has nothing to do with it." He was angry now. How dared Crane presume to understand what motivated him?

Crane sounded extremely satisfied. "I am aware that I probably don't seem particularly threatening to you. But the people who I work for are very threatening indeed, believe me. It would be a very foolish mistake to underestimate precisely who you are dealing with here."

And it was Batman's turn to sound satisfied. "The League of Shadows?"

The silence from behind the door told him all he need to know.

"I don't think you're up to date with all the latest news Dr Crane." Able to afford a little sarcasm now. "The League of Shadows has been disbanded. Ra's Al Ghul is dead. No-one is going to come for you now."

"You saw him die?" The question was immediate.

"I killed him myself." It wasn't the whole truth. But it really sounded good, even to him.

Crane's voice was steady again. "The League of Shadows was an ideal not an organisation. It cannot be ended by the death of just one man."

It took a second to sink in. Then in a silent explosion of horror Batman realised what the doctor was saying. Realised what it meant. "You knew? You knew all the time that they planned to destroy the city?"

Suddenly everything he had assumed about Crane, all the things that had justified his attempt to pull this one thing out of the flames, all the hope that he had allowed himself to feel, all of that was gone. All of his guilt had been meaningless. Crane had been lost long before Batman had impulsively released the trigger on the tiny canister of gas.

Through his confusion he could hear Crane's voice continuing calmly on. "The destruction of the city was a small price to pay to get what I wanted. You see, Mr Bat, or Mr Man, whichever you prefer, when an addict needs the substance which feeds their addiction, the very last thing on their mind is the people who stand between them and their goal."

Crane paused. "It's all really very sad."

He sighed. "But it makes little difference. I believe that my usefulness to Mr Al Ghul had come to an end in any case." There was a hint of bitterness beneath the skilfully modulated tone. "Insanity is a liability for even the most understanding of employers."

"So it's true." Batman said dully. "You are mad."

"You aren't exactly a poster boy for mental health yourself Bat Man." The speed and sharpness of Crane's delivery suggested that the doctor still had some raw nerves where he could be hit.

The degree of annoyance Batman felt at the deliberate separation of the syllables of his name suggested that he too still had some vulnerable spots that remained exposed to Crane's sniping. He pressed his hands briefly to his forehead. The cool smooth touch of the mask made him feel somehow more human. Not that that made much sense anymore.

Crane's voice sounded closer now. "You aren't the only one who wears a mask to get nearer to who you truly are inside."

Batman remembered something from a time that seemed now to be in the distant past. "It isn't about who you are underneath; it's what you do that defines you."

And Crane's contemptuous laughter filled the tiny room behind the door. "If you truly believe that, then congratulations, Mr . . . Bat, you may just be the one person in Gotham crazier than I am."

This was pointless.

"What do you want from me?" It was a poor attempt to change the subject. Impossible for him to keep the weariness or the frustration entirely concealed. He could see how neatly the tables had turned.

But he was sick of the conversation now, sick of Crane's mocking invisible company. He was ready to go back out into the clear air of the morning and lie down under the warm sun until his mind was wiped squeaky clean from all of it's conflicted questioning.

The doctor's voice had resumed its previous gentle bedside manner. He sounded collected and assured. "You brought back a bag from the basement last night. For which I now thank you, although I may not have done so at the time."

"And?"

"Although you so rudely interrupted me at my work, I believe I had managed to assemble almost everything that I will now require."

"To destroy my mind?"

"No. To try and salvage something of mine." And now Crane's voice began to speed up a little. He sounded half excited, half afraid. "Please, don't make me beg you for it. I'd very much like to be able to say that you would regret doing so, but sadly that may no longer be the case. I only have a limited time frame in which to work, and after that time expires even I wouldn't like to say what might be left of me. And that's a professional opinion."

Batman smiled grimly to himself. "I believe your doctorate has probably been revoked by now." he said, and hated himself for it immediately afterwards.

"Then call it an educated guess." The low voice sounded a lot younger now. There was more emotion audible in it than there had been a few moments before.

The image of Crane's frightened upturned face flashed again before Batman's eyes. He thought that at least he knew exactly what Crane looked like now, and that thought twisted about inside his stomach like a bad coffee.

He could imagine only too well what the long slide towards the final merciful extinction of conscious thought must feel like. The gradual numbness, the slow muffling of external sounds, the colour draining away from the sky. The prospect of emptiness didn't seem all that bad to him, but he imagined that a man like Crane must have more than a few ghosts and nightmares from the past waiting patiently to be let loose inside his head. He had a few himself.

And it was true what Crane had said. Whatever he decided to do eventually, the man would be no use to him raving.

It didn't even seem like that big a decision in the end.

Before he brought the bag back to the cell door he untied the strings and looked down into the dark neck. A mass of dusty brown sacking covered the contents and at the sight of it he was forced to overcome a strong urge to throw up on the floor beside the bench.

Yes, he could all too easily imagine a little of what might be lurking inside Crane's head.

Thankful for the gloves he was wearing he removed the mask from the bag and dropped it down at the furthest end of the bench. He decided that Crane could keep the glasses.

It was hard for him to decide exactly what game Crane was playing with him. His ability to tell which parts of the doctor's conversation were actual authentic representations of the truth, and which were simply lies, was apparently not improving over time. And the doctor had sounded surprisingly close to sanity for much of their conversation, although he didn't want to imagine at what cost that effect was being achieved.

A couple of hours ago he had seriously considered giving Crane the antidote that Fox had synthesized a few days before. Although after this amount of time it seemed doubtful it was going to make any real difference. Now he found that he no longer cared.

He would give Dr Crane all his pills, and if the doctor chose to take another way out of this stupid situation then it was none of his business. He had had no right to bring the man back with him in the first place.

So he walked heavily back to the door, carrying the bag in one hand.

"OK" he said. "Open up."

Crane sounded like a purring cat. "I think you'll find that the door pushes open quite easily after all." he said. "For a man in your physical condition . . ."

It was true. The door grated against the stone floor but whatever was behind it pushed away with almost embarrassing speed.

"Well, thank God for that." Crane straightened up from his crouched position against the wall beside the door. "It really has been a tremendous strain keeping this up."

And Batman saw two things almost instantly. Firstly that Crane was no longer restrained in any way. And secondly that there was some sort of twisted cord coming from the doctor's right hand

As Crane moved Batman faintly caught sight of the flickering movement above his head, and then, unexpectedly behind his back. It took all the discipline of his long training to twist away from the beam as it fell, scraping down painfully down his back, shredding the fabric of the suit.

The impact knocked the breath out of him, but the will and the strength to hit out at Crane as hard as he could, that mercifully remained steady. Crane almost bounced off the back wall of the room, crunching into the floor just a few seconds before Batman did.

It took a moment for Batman to recover. This time he was seriously angry. He couldn't believe that Crane had once again got the drop on him. Almost literally on this occasion. It had been far too close for comfort.

He tried not to think about what would have happened if Crane had succeeded in his scheme, whether Alfredmight have been the one who suffered for Batman's foolishness. He had taken a selfish horrible risk in bringing the man back to Wayne Manor.

But he could put all that right now.

Still breathing heavily he rolled Crane over on to his back. Disconcertingly the psychiatrist had remained conscious despite the rough treatment that Batman had given him. Blue amused eyes stared lazily back up at him.

"Don't you go thinking that you've won now."

Batman ignored Crane's attempt to provoke him. He was done with playing. This had to end now, for good and for all.

With one hand he fished into his belt pocket to find a plastic tie. Crane lay passively on the floor in front of him, making no effort to escape. He wondered if the doctor had been winded in the fall. Perhaps he had some sort of internal injuries from the beating that his former victims had inflicted upon him the day before.

The psychiatrist's expression was tranquil. He looked to be far beyond Batman's reach, far beyond the reach of anything that was going on around him. Only the movement of his eyes gave away the presence of a working intelligence still inhabiting the weakened and broken shell of his body. It was hard to believe that something so vital could really be fading away.

As he lifted Crane's right arm in preparation for securing his wrists the doctor's slight body suddenly convulsed with pain, jerking rigidly away from him. There was a hiss of air sucked in between Crane's dry parted lips. Confused by the reaction Batman looked curiously at the arm he was holding, and realised with a sinking feeling in his chest that the damp sheen that he had taken to be sweat was in fact blood. There was lots of blood.

Just above the elbow there was a darker patch, which seemed to be the source of the bleeding, although the slim arm was such a mess it was difficult for him to tell. Very gently he let his fingertips run over the sticky surface of the wound. Found the small hard object which seemed to be embedded deep downin thepale skin.

Crane's eyes were tightly shut now and he was biting down hard on his lower lip.

Feeling sick as he did so Batman gripped the head of the object between his finger and thumb. And slowly drew the long jagged nail out of the wound.

"What the hell is this?" He didn't even try to hide the shock that he was feeling.

"Oh. That." Crane sounded dismissive. "I have found that pain can often be very helpful in controlling the appearance of certain symptoms."

Batman was struggling to contain his revulsion, unconsciously moving away from the small perfectly calm figure on the floor. He didn't want to think about exactly how Crane had reached that conclusion.

"But," the psychiatrist continued, and his voice was suddenly icy cold, far colder than the stone walls of the Batcave,"what I have found to be substantially more helpful is easy and unlimited access to extremely high doses of restricted drugs. Now give me my fucking bag ."

And this time Batman knew when he was beaten. Trying to cling on to whatever was left of his dignity he got to his feet. Looked down at the battered but undefeated figure of Dr Crane, still lying peacefully on the cold stone floor as if it was a fine silk covered bed. Looked down with something like respect.

Then he stepped back through the archway, leaving the bag and its contents for Crane to do with as he pleased.

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Brickbats/bouquets all accepted with gratitude. Thanks for taking the time to read this . . .


	8. Burning every bridge that I've crossed

There's more! Hope you all enjoy this installlment, thanks for staying with me.

I stole a bit of dialogue from the movie, I want to stay as much as possible within the parameters of the story so far so I didn't feel I could make too many changes. As always the characters aren't mine. Just the plot in as far as I've adapted it. I'm not worth suing!

I've really appreciated all the reviews so far. Any feedback, good or bad is very welcome.

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Cool morning air laced with the acrid smell of burning blew gently across his face as Bruce stepped out of the mouth of the cave onto the tree lined path that led back towards the remains of Wayne Manor. His heart was still beating hard.

What he had just seen had impressed him as much as it had repulsed him. Dr Crane was a sick man, but his will was still strong. Stronger than mine, Bruce thought ruefully. He had never intended to allow Crane access to the bag of drugs that had come back with them from Arkham, never planned to let the doctor get under his skin.

He shuddered at the thought of the low persuasive voice, at the way that Crane had been one step ahead of him throughout the whole encounter. He must be getting soft in his old age. Perhaps the destruction of his house and the loss of his old friend had affected him more than he had thought.

Because Ducard had fooled him as well. Or rather Ra's Al Ghul, as he must think of him now. Bruce had saved Henri from death once, but there had been no way to save him from the consequences of what he had done to Gotham. Justice had been served; he had merely been the one who enabled it to unfold.

"Evil happens when good men do nothing." And he believed that in his heart, if there was nothing else he could believe in. It was not in him to stand aside and let the forces of darkness overwhelm the city that he loved as his father before him had loved it.

But it still did not explain why he had gone back for Crane. Or why, even now, now that he knew that Crane was beyond redemption, he still could not bring himself to make an end.

The path swung up through the shady trees at the end of the garden, the smouldering ruins of the house coming into view between the long brick walls of the kitchen garden. Amongst the debris and the dust he could make out the black clad figure of Alfred inspecting the scene, occasionally stooping to retrieve some item of value from the ground.

He thought briefly of what might had happened had Crane successfully overpowered him and was temporarily giddy with horror. Then he collected himself and walked up into the sunlight.

"Ah." Alfred's sounded mildly disapproving. "I see you have finally come to inspect your handiwork sir."

Rousing himself from his thoughts Bruce smiled. "If you are going to do a job, might as well do it properly." he joked, looking round at the complete devastation that had until the previous night been his home.

"I'm afraid that the press have been less than generous." Alfred unfurled a tabloid front page, the top half entirely taken up by the words "Billionaire Destroys Home in Drunken Rampage".

Bruce sighed theatrically. "I don't suppose that there was a mention of anything else that I did last night?"

Alfred gave a smile that was almost proud. "The more . . . respectable . . . papers did give that a small mention, now that you bring it to my attention." He unrolled another paper, one with more words and fewer pictures. The headline read "Gotham's Saviour: Batman Triumphant". There was a photo of a bewildered looking Gordon standing beside the Batmobile, the flames of the train clearly visible in the background.

"Car looks good." Bruce gave a small grin. "Fox will be pleased to see it made the papers."

A little lower on the page his eye was caught by a smaller headline. He took the paper out of Alfred's hands and read "Arkham Broken Open: Scarecrow Still on the Loose".

Alfred looked at him narrowly. "It seems, sir, that Dr Crane remains at large."

"So it seems." Bruce folded the paper and handed it back to his butler. "It will be a long time before the police regain any control of the Narrows. He could hide out in Arkham for weeks." He turned and walked into the ruins of Wayne Manor, effectively cutting off any rejoinder that Alfred might have wanted to make.

He knew that he would soon have to tell Alfred exactly what it was that he was keeping locked in the Batcave. But he wasn't ready for that yet. It could wait.

Now his attention was taken up with the wreckage of his home. It felt as if every piece of dirty rubble held some memory that was dear to him, some piece of his past that was now erased as if it had never been.

The Bruce Wayne who had run through the corridors of Wayne Manor as a child, the Bruce who had heard his parents laugh and who had played with Rachel in the gardens, that Bruce had been wiped away. He couldn't even remember exactly what his mother's voice had sounded like. Yes, it had been soft, and sweet and gentle, and she had giggled a lot. But sometimes he wondered if that was really what he remembered or if he had made it up one night, alone in bed lying in the dark.

It had been so long.

"Sir?" Alfred's voice was gentle.

Bruce looked up. "Alfred?"

"We have a visitor. Miss Dawes is here to see you."

Rachel was walking slowly across the lawn. Her eyes were wide as she inspected the damage to the house where she had grown up. Bruce had almost forgotten that it had been her home as well and he wondered exactly what he was becoming. Things like that had used to be so much more important.

Although it had cost him an effort to make the decision he knew the relationship that he and Rachel had shared for so long was finally coming to an end. He had known the moment that he let her know who he was that everything had changed forever. Alfred was enough of a risk. He couldn't allow anything to happen to the people that he loved.

"Rachel . . ." This was going to be the hardest part.

"Bruce." Her face was soft as she looked up into his. "What are you going to do?"

He let go the breath he had been holding. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you . . ."

"Shush." Her finger was on her lips. And he thought that she had never looked prettier or less approachable. The brittle façade that he had seen her wear in the courtroom, had seen on her face in her interviews with the press, was standing between them for the first time.

He listened as she apologised for the things that she had said the day Chill died. The day that he had finally embraced his own darkness. The day that he had disappeared. Now he found it hard to imagine that things could have worked out any other way. It was all too easy for him to let her know that she had been forgiven, almost before she had finished speaking.

She paused. Then she looked up again and this time the shields were down. "I thought about us . . ." she began and Bruce knew that this was the moment to step in, to say what he had to say. That it was over now. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Rachel half smiled. "I started to hope." His heart sank. "But then I found out about your mask."

And everything that Bruce had been planning to say collapsed in his mouth at the sound of that "But . . ."

"Batman is just a symbol Rachel . . ." he said lamely. The words sounded weak even to him.

Rachel looked into his face and her lower lip moved a little. Then she reached out one small hand and tentatively touched his cheek with a trailing finger.

"No Bruce. This is your mask. Your real face is now the one that criminals fear."

No, Bruce thought. No. This is me here, talking to you. Batman, Batman was never who I really was, just a costume that made my job less complicated. Being Batman was meant to protect you, meant to make it possible to separate this from that . . .

"The man I loved, the man who vanished . . . he never came back at all." Her eyes were wet. "But maybe he's still out there somewhere. Maybe someday, when Gotham no longer needs Batman..."

"Gotham will always need Batman." Bruce spoke bleakly, not stopping to acknowledge the pain he was feeling.

Everything that he had worked so hard for was falling apart. He had never meant to let Rachel know about Batman. He had done so out of a childish desire to prove to her that he was more than the shallow spoilt playboy that the rest of Gotham saw. To make her proud. To cut away the hurt that she had caused him so long ago. "Your father would be ashamed of you."

Well, he had succeeded. She was proud of him. But not of Bruce. She was proud of the ideal that he had become.

When he looked back up her defenses were back in place. A smooth impenetrable wall stood between them and he could see no way to get through to her.

He had won what he thought he had wanted. Her respect. But what had he lost to gain it? "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" he thought with a stab of bitter humour. But he took the hand that Rachel offered him.

Side by side they walked quietly through the ashes of their past until they came to the green lawn that had run down to the edge of the house.

"I'll rebuild it." His voice was firm.

Rachel gave a small tight smile. "I'll look forward to seeing that." she said. Then she turned away and walked across the grass to her waiting ride. She never looked back at him once, but still he waited there on the edge of the gravel drive until the small car was completely out of sight.

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OK! I'd love to know what you think. Please let me know, even if I've made you mad . . .


	9. It’s a picture perfect evening

Apologies for the delay in updating, my hard drive was savaged by an evil virus, which has only just been banished back to whence it came. So just a short chapter to let you all know I'm still around . . .

All the reviews very much appreciated - it really makes my day to know that people are reading and enjoying. Critical comments are welcome too - it ain't gonna improve so quickly without your help.

Thanks again for staying with it.

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It was one of those days when being Bruce Wayne seemed to take up even more time than usual. Once the press had come and gone, and he had been photographed on innumerable occasions, standing on the ash strewn site of his fire ravaged property, feeling foolish and looking less than welcoming, there was still the insurance company and fire brigade to handle. A generous donation to the emergency services and the polite but firm assistance of Alfred helped to smooth things over but the paperwork alone was going to occupy him for several days to come.

Throughout it all his mind kept returning to Crane. The thought of the doctor was like an aching tooth, uncomfortable to touch but impossible to leave alone.

Although his conversation with Rachel had been painful it was almost easy to block it out, to pretend that it was no problem. There was no safe place for Rachel anywhere in his immediate future, and at least that much was certain. But the mental image of Crane lying serenely on the stone floor, his blue eyes looking mockingly upwards was a cold nagging presence throughout the long day.

Bruce greeted the setting sun with a sensation of relief not entirely unmingled with anticipation. Alfred was seeing the last of the insurance company representatives off the property, the final car scrunching slowly across the gravelled driveway. Long shadows were streaking the dusty green of the grass deep bands of black and in the plane trees above the kitchen garden little birds called fretfully, disturbed by the bustle of the day.

Beneath the long sweep of lawn the first of the bats would be starting to stir. Bruce wondered what else was stirring, down there in the dim blue light behind the waterfall.

The effort of sustaining the careless offhand persona Bruce Wayne chose to allow the world to see was leaving him drained. Right then he could think of nothing beyond a cold drink, something smoky and Scottish with a long dark finish that would burn away the troubles of the past week. Burn away all the people he had to be, the people he had become.

"Master Wayne?" There was a hint of concern in Alfred's voice.

Bruce realised he had been stood staring vacantly into the dirt beneath his feet, his gaze unconsciously trying to penetrate down through the cold damp soil. There was a brief but shattering second in which he had a very clear image of Crane looking calmly up at him through the roof of the cave.

"Alfred . . ." There was so much he wanted to say.

"Bricks and mortar can be replaced sir." The voice Bruce had known since childhood was kind, he realised Alfred must be thinking that he was still grieving the loss of Wayne Manor. At least Crane was a distraction from the incineration of his home, he thought, making an effort to shrug off the gloomy mood that had begun to steal over him.

The ruins of the house looked otherworldly in the shadowy red light of the setting sun, like buildings on another planet. Without the familiar shape of the property to guide his eye it was already becoming difficult for him to remember exactly where the house had stood. Where his bedroom window had once looked out over the estate. It was all gone as if it had never been.

As the evening drew in and the lights of Gotham began to blink open in a slow sequence across the line of the horizon he was increasingly eager to get underground. To slip into the comforting embrace of the Batsuit, feel the armour across his chest, the reassuring weight of the weapons against his hips. To pull the mask down over his face and feel the cool clarity of Batman wiping the muddled mess of his own mind clean.

Beside him Alfred made a small polite sound, too discreet to want to break in on Bruce's thoughts, but too concerned to leave him as he was. "I thought I might perhaps prepare something for supper?"

They walked back to the cottage side by side, the ease of old companionship making idle chatter unnecessary. Earlier in the day Bruce had smiled at Alfred's suggestion for "improvement to the foundations", clearly his butler was still standing firmly behind him and his quest to save Gotham. There would be time for all that very soon.

Meanwhile he was almost afraid to admit to the old servant exactly how much he was enjoying living in the more homely confines of the estate cottage. Far more suited to two people than the ungainly sprawl of the mansion, he thought. There had been several rooms previously into which he had been only perhaps once or twice in his life. It seemed somehow wrong to fight for justice whilst living a life of outrageous privilege . . .

An hour later he was sitting sprawled across the sofa in the kitchen watching Alfred tidy away the remains of the meal. A cold glass of single malt and an excellent cigar were gently smoothing away the lines from his brow, a classic jazz record spinning away on the turntable behind him.

What was it Alfred had said to him? "Start pretending to have fun . . . you might even have a little by accident." He slumped further into the soft cushions, feeling the deep velvet caress his aching back.

And then two things happened almost at once.

Without turning around from the small sink in the window Alfred said, "Will your friend downstairs be requiring any dinner, sir?"

And as Bruce pulled himself up in his seat and tried to adjust his scattered thoughts he saw that through the glass over Alfred's shoulder, high above the dim glow of the city, a single spotlight was throwing a pale disc of yellow up onto the scudding clouds. Even from the back of the room it was all too easy to see that the dark silhouette marked into its centre was that of an gigantic black bat.

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Yes, I know it was short, but there will be more very soon. I promise . . . Thanks for reading. Please do review if youhave a chance. . .


	10. All things have a place under the moon

Well, here we go again.

Thank you so much for the reviews, I'm glad to know that people are still reading and still liking what I'm doing. All reviews are welcome and appreciated, and give me a little kick to get the next part sorted, uploaded and out there . . . so thank you.

Er, I'll just say again that I don't own them. They're probably glad. Besides, they do their own thing anyway . . .

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A moment of uncomfortable silence hung over the kitchen, Bruce unsure what to say next, Alfred temporarily distracted by the arcing beam of the golden Bat Signal. The record crackled over the final few bars of music and span out into static hum.

"It would seem, sir, that your presence is required in the city."

Gordon, Bruce thought. Apparently Batman's little spotlight stunt with Falcone had made an impression. Apparently Batman had made an impression. It hadn't taken Gordon long to figure out a system for making contact, which was encouraging.

He uncurled his body slowly, stretching like a big cat, pulling reluctantly away from the temptation of the soft cushions. Bruce Wayne might have finished his work for the day, but Batman's night had hardly begun. Gordon wasn't the only little task he had to take care of before the morning. He stretched out a hand and stowed the arm of the record player neatly into its rest, cutting off the gentle rumble of the revolving turntable.

Alfred looked at him contemplatively. "If you don't mind me asking, do you have any way of knowing that that isn't a trap?"

Bruce gave a wolfish grin. "Nope."

Alfred sighed. "There would be no point to me suggesting that you shouldn't necessarily go running your head straight into it?"

"Nope."

The butler nodded, resigned. "I thought not."

Bruce smiled at him with affection. "Pig headed as always, eh Alfred?"

"You said it sir, not me."

Already Bruce was fretting to be away, down to the dark cool air of the Batcave, waiting to sweep the problems of the day aside in the excitement of assuming his other identity. To breathe the pure oxygen of Batman's simple outlook on the world.

And he liked Gordon, felt a sensation of comradeship with the man. Somehow Gordon seemed to be breathing that pure oxygen in his own life, however difficult or complex that life might be. He was glad to have found someone who shared his enthusiasm for Gotham. It was refreshing just talking to him.

Despite the flinty bravado he had just shown Alfred he knew in his heart that this was no trap, it was far too early for anything of that nature, the criminal underworld of Gotham was still regrouping after the recent assault on their territory. The loss of the Narrows had damaged more than just the already weakened police jurisdiction over the city. Half the underground headquarters of Gotham's oldest criminal families had been concentrated in the winding streets of the Narrows, knowingly or otherwise Ra's Al Ghul had struck Gotham's deepest shadows hardest. Any signal that rose from the rooftops to light up the dirty clouds hanging over the city was a message from the people he had helped.

Alfred was already moving about the cramped kitchen, packing a few things taken down from the wall cupboards into a linen bag, his brow lined with concern. "I filled up the tank while you were asleep this morning . . ."

Bruce took the bag firmly out of Alfred's hands. "I won't need any snacks." He felt like he was back on his first day at school. This was ridiculous. He was a grown man. He fought criminals with his bare hands. He was beginning to worry that Alfred might ask him what time he was planning to come home.

The butler looked at him, all affronted dignity. "The 'snacks' are for whoever it is you have locked in the little storeroom downstairs. I assume you are intending to feed your guest?"

Well, no, thought Bruce honestly. I had been thinking about seeing if a few more days without food would make any difference. I was wondering how long it would take before he would beg me for water, crawling on his bleeding knees . . .

But he thought it best not to mention that kind of thing to Alfred, who would probably only lecture him about the right and the wrong way to treat his pets. So he took the bag, not bothering to inspect the contents. It would do.

The full moon was more than bright enough to illuminate his path across the lawn, the cold light giving every blade of grass its own blue pool of shadow. In that unearthly glow even the halogen glare of the Bat Signal seemed faint and smudgy against the orange and grey of the sky.

It was cold for the time of year, cold enough for his breath to be seen in great puffs of silvery vapour wafting lightly away on the wind coming in off the coast. Across the ruins the beams marking the entrance to the cave stood out blackly.

It must be freezing down there in the dark, he thought, and he felt no sympathy, only a kind of dull blankness. He had used up all the emotion he had had to spend on Crane. Crane's tricks had turned whatever feeling he might once have had for the man, all of the sickening guilt that he'd wasted, into a flickering ember of hate, and even hate was more than he cared to let himself feel now.

The path dipped away down into the walls of the old gardens, and he followed it with the sure footed step of one who knew the road well. He had played here as a child, scampered through the flowerbeds and the greenhouses, stuffed his mouth with the ripe juicy plums that grew on the trees lining the southern walls.

Those days were gone. He was a man now, and beneath the gardens of his youth twisted the black passageways where his new life had been formed.

The falls were splashing down over the rocks, the foam in the pool glowing milky white in the moonlight as he ducked nimbly behind the curtain of water. A fine spray misted his dark hair.

Inside the cave, further away from the prevailing roar of the waterfall, all was dark and dry and still, and in the darkness he moved with renewed confidence, renewed vigour. There was no real need to flick on the big switch that powered the generator, no need to break the consuming purity of the shadows with the harsh yellow beam of the single lamp.

Silently he moved to the wooden door of the storeroom. It was still shut, and that he supposed was a lot to be grateful for, although how exactly he supposed Crane might have escaped was beyond him.

There was still something about the silence that made his hackles rise. Something . . . almost uncanny. Something that made him a whole lot less comfortable about creeping around in the dark and a whole lot more enthusiastic about turning on the switch and letting those searching electric rays sweep the floor.

When he did so it was with a grinding sense of failure. It was hateful, the way that Crane could put him on edge without even needing to be in the same room. He must be going a little mad himself.

Yet putting on the Batsuit, letting the black fabric mould to him, stretching his body into the folds of the material, was as good as a stiff drink. The tension drained away from his shoulders, the wiry muscles in his neck relaxing and unwinding. He hadn't realised how tense he had become. His hands felt their way into the tight gloves, fingers clenching under his second skin. This was home.

From behind the narrow slits of the mask the storeroom beckoned to him from across the cave. Moving with all the coiled grace and steel that only the Batsuit seemed to give him the freedom to assume now, Batman walked over to the archway. His gun was in his hand, his index finger wrapped loosely around the cold metal trigger.

All Bruce's concerns were forgotten. Batman's nerves were alive, every inch of his body alert and ready for whatever he might find. Nothing Crane could do would surprise him now. He was done with underestimating the psychiatrist's abilities.

The key rotated quietly in the steel lock and the door pushed back without resistance. Cold air rushed forward to meet him.

Crane was lying curled quietly on the floor, his back pressed against the stone wall of the cave, to all appearances sound asleep.

The startling blue eyes were closed, the half moon eyelids fluttering with the force of some unknown dream. There was dirt smeared on his pale face, and a new bruise blossoming where Batman's fist had hit his cheek that morning. And he looked . . . harmless. A sleeping boy.

On the damp floor beside him the wire framed glasses were neatly folded and put aside. Against the wall the bag of medicine had been emptied, neat stacks of drug packets were arranged in careful rows. Next to the doctor's body an empty pill bottle offered an explanation for his slumbers.

Batman watched without emotion as Crane shivered on the cold stone floor, the dirty orange canvas of the jumpsuit soaking up moisture from the icy air. The doctor's breath was a little raspy now, either the damp or his injuries starting to affect his lungs. The arm that had been hurt earlier on was sticking out at an awkward angle, the sleeve caked in dry black blood.Every few moments he stiffened,tucking his legs up towards his chest,lettinga small whimper escape from between his badly bitten lips.

Bruce might have allowed himself to feel pity, maybe even brought the grey woolen blanket from his bench, the blanket that Rachel had been wrapped in so recently, and tucked it down over the narrow shoulder blades. Batman merely dropped the bag of food down by the small trembling figure and walked away, turning the key in the lock behind him.

But as he turned on the bright lights of the Batmobile, pressing his foot hard to the floor, he caught himself wondering if the sound of the engines would disturb Crane in the depths of his chemical sleep.

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Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed, and if you did (or if you didn't, all opinions welcome here) please take the time to leave me a wee review, pretty please . . .

Ta very much.


	11. Tonight seems to belong to me

A slightly lighter chaper, and about time too I say.

Thanks for reading this far.

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Flashes of neon light swept hypnotically over the bulletproof glass screen as the big car muscled its way effortlessly along the carriageways that led into Gotham City. Batman let the powerful engines surge when the road was empty, loving the deep roar of the motor and the clean sweep of the tarmac road endlessly disappearing beneath the wheels.

High over the city the Bat Signal was still beaming its message into the sky, the silhouette of the bat seeming to float on the wind as the clouds streamed past behind it. Nice work, he thought. Already he could imagine the pushers and the pimps of Gotham looking up fearfully into the night, staring at the light in the sky and waiting for the winged black figure of vengeance to drop silently down into the road behind them.

Fear and deception, letting those he hunted know that Batman did not fight alone, and allowing that fear to do its work amongst the weak of Gotham's criminal classes, that was what was going to win the city. Ra's Al Ghul had created an epidemic of terror that had swept through the streets, destroying everything it touched. Well, now he intended to create a similar epidemic, one that would rip the underworld apart at the seams.

He took the backstreets into the centre. Let the Batmobile be seen, and witnessed with a sense of mounting gratification the way in which the huddles of people blocking the mouths of the alleyways quickly dispersed. The looks which were thrown at the car were of fear, in some faces mingled with curiosity; wild speculation about the identity of Batman had become bread and butter reporting for the tabloid press. The broadsheets too, now that he came to think about it.

Batman was big news in Gotham. He would bet his bottom dollar that the footage of the Batmobile even now being recorded by the ever present CCTV cameras would be on the news programmes by the evening. Should have washed the hood, he thought with a smile. Alfred would be mortified.

He dipped the lights, let the engine die away to a smooth hum and cruised quietly through the streets of the financial district, busy by day but abandoned by all except those who had nowhere else to go once night had fallen. He knew that the signal must be coming up from one of the many skyscraper rooftops, but to find out exactly where was going to take a different viewpoint. It was time to get out and do some scouting.

There was more than one 'security system' installed on the car, and he entertained no fear that it might be gone when he got back. Fox was blessed with the doubtful combination of a deep love of engineering and a slightly off kilter sense of humour, and Batman had no wish to witness the summary justice that might befall any unwary carjacker who dared to make an attempt on the Batmobile. Although he believed that green ink and chillies had featured rather prominently in one of the designs he had recently signed and handed back to Fox,not feelingany need for further comment.

He pointed the remote at the Batmobile's receiver. Arm. Lock. Wait. The car gave a low bleep and settled down in its dark corner, looking as inconspicuous as a big black tank could ever hope to on a city street.

Empty crisp packets and plastic bottles were swirling around his feet, the dead end of the alley trapping them in a vortex of evil smelling air. Above his head an air conditioning unit ground into rattling life, sending hot stale air pumping out into the night. It reminded him of Crane's underground lab and the thought of that dank chamber made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Time for some clearer air.

Two half running steps, a flick of his strong wrist, and the grapnel was away, crunching into a ledge high above him. Step, step and swish, he was up and away from the dirty streets, his cape billowing out behind him, one quick grab and he was safely up on the edge of the tower block, the city, _his_ city, spread out below him like a Jackson Pollack painting. It felt . . . amazing. It did every time.

Scanning the roofs that composed the skyline it was easy to see where the Bat Signal was being projected from. The beam of light soared unbroken into the clouds, on closer inspection it was possible to distinguish the finer details of the bat design. Gordon must be quite the DIY expert, he thought, admiring the clean crisp outline.

High over Gotham the black symbol of the bat looked down as Batman took a short run towards the edge of the building, flicked his cape open wide and soared like a human vulture to the roof on the other side of the street. Down in the dirty street below a young man looked up fearfully at the sky.

"I saw something _that_ time." His voice was a little shaky as he turned to his companion, a scruffy individual engaged in the act of cleaning between his teeth with a short length of wire.

The scruffy man rolled his eyes scornfully and shrugged, concentrating his attention on the task in hand. There was an unpleasant scraping noise as he pulled the wire out from his mouth and flicked something into the road. "S'an urban myth."

"What is?"

"This Bat character. Just a story created to while away the long cold nights, something for the kiddies."

"It's in all the papers." The boy looked up again, an uneasy expression on his thin features. "Gives me the creeps."

Another scraping noise, another flick. "Everything gives you the creeps. If it's in the papers then it definitely ain't for real." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic Cola bottle clearly containing something a little stronger than Cola. "Get some of this down you. It'll put hairs on your chest . . ."

The skinny kid reached out a hand, wiped the neck of the bottle with a grimy shirt sleeve and raised it to his mouth. At the end of the road a car appeared, swerving wildly in the orange glow of the streetlamps, one door wildly swinging open. The screaming of the engine startled the boy into dropping the bottle, it rolled over on the pavement and dropped down into the street.

"Jesus, boy," the older man moaned, apparently oblivious to the drama unfolding just ahead of them. "Not the sipping liquor." He flung aside his piece of wire, and with the gallant air of a man making a great act of personal sacrifice stepped into the road to retrieve the spinning bottle.

The kid had less than a second to shout a warning, no time to do more than to rush wildly out into the road, shoving frantically at his bewildered friend before the car was upon them and there was nothing left but light and sound and the horrible fear of the impact. And then, surprisingly, there was nothing.

Timidly he looked up, half afraid of what he would see. The car had stopped a few feet away from him, its lights still burning but the engine now mysteriously dead. The driver, or what he presumed was the driver, was slumped forward over the steering wheel, just a blonde head leaning against the windscreen.

On the passenger side a well dressed young woman was climbing slowly out of the seat, supporting herself with one hand on the open door. When she was halfway out of the car she turned and, with surprising aggression for such a small girl, punched the unconscious driver full in the face.

"Bastard. Bastard. Bastard . . ." Her voice broke and she dissolved into helpless sobs.

The kid might have been a streetwalker his whole life, might have missed a couple of baths here and there, might even have taken a few pulls too many on the Cola bottle that night. But he knew what to do when faced with a damsel in distress.

He pulled his silenced companion to his feet, the precious bottle discarded in the gutter and together they approached the car.

"Miss?" The handkerchief in his dirty hand was far from clean, it was far from certain that it had even started life as a handkerchief.

She took it gratefully, wiped her eyes and filled her lungs with a deep gulping breath of air. "Thank you."

The deep voice from above made all three of them start, spin in the silent street and look up. Batman was standing motionless on a ledge that made up part of the archway to a merchant bank, it was almost possible, in the shadows, to mistake him for a statue, part of the architecture.

From the pillar beside him a taunt line of wire extended to the back of the car, where a savage looking hook was embedded in the bumper. The skidmarks in the tarmac behind the vehicle were an inch deep.

"Call the police." he said. And then, with a single graceful movement and a flap of black cape he was gone.

"Well," the scruffy man said wonderingly, "screw me slowly with a saxophone." And then wondered why the kid kicked him and the girl blushed.

High on the roof above the street Batman watched the ill assorted threesome set off together down the road, talking animatedly amongst themselves, the wino, the street kid and the society girl.

Best damn job in the world, he thought with a satisfied smile.

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So? Please do feel free to leave a review . . . all feedback is very welcome and much appreciated.


	12. You can’t help or hurt me

Apologies for the delay. Real life stuff kind of intervened. There should be another chapter pretty quickly so hope that makes up for it?

I'm going to make an assumption here that people have seen the film. The final scene between Batman and Gordon was absolutely pitch perfect and I feel no need to add my two-pennies-worth. If you haven't seen the film, then wooah! you've read a long way without any visual cues . . .

Thanks for the reviews and the reads. Stick with it, and if you don't like anything then feel free to pull me up and let me know.

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The night had worn on. By the time Batman dropped down into the alleyway where the Batmobile was patiently waiting, the Eastern sky was beginning to show pale streamers of light, racing up like fireworks from the silver horizon. The neon glow of the street lamps was weak and sickly in the first bright flush of the dawn.

His little chat with Gordon had been both pleasantly companionable and unsettling, an uneasy sensation rising up in to stick in his chest at the suggestion of "escalation". It wasn't an unrealistic idea, and the thought that he might be triggering some sort of master criminal renaissance gave him the shivers. Lure the bastards out into the open, he thought, rationalizing as far as he was able. He had become horribly tired now. It was time to put the wheels back on the road.

Reluctant though he would be to admit it, he felt a strange sense of envy when he spoke to Gordon, admired and respected the man for his ability to juggle family life and a thirst for justice. He could take no such risks.

As Batman he could wield greater power than even Bruce Wayne's billions, yet it was Bruce Wayne more than anyone, who had the potential to destroy all that Batman had worked so hard to achieve. Bruce Wayne was weak where Batman was strongest, and he knew that he could never let the two collide, whichever role he might be playing.

Purposefully he summoned the car to his side, unable to repress a touch of boyish pride in ownership of such a machine. There were things he had to do back at the ranch. For the time being he had dodged Gordon's reasonable concern about Crane's whereabouts. And Crane was safe enough where he was.

His talk with Gordon had given him the seed of an idea, an idea which grew in his mind as he piloted the big car along the road towards Wayne Manor. Right now his main problem, his only problem, was Crane.

Frankly he didn't know what to do with the man. Conscience prevented him from killing him in cold blood, conscience and the insidious creeping pity which mourned for what Crane had been and what he had become.

Things were less complicated now he was freed from the responsibility of destroying Crane's mind, everything the psychiatrist had said confirmed him in his belief that Crane had been lost long ago. Long before Batman came on to the scene.

But even Crane might have a use. Manipulative and tricky as the doctor could be Batman felt sure he would be able to persuade him to see things in a different light. He fervently hoped that the drugs had worked, that the man he would be dealing with would be lucid. Crane's lightning changes of mood put him on edge.

The car span off the main road and bumped along the tree lined dirt track leading to the cave, spitting dirt out from under its wheels. Batman's thoughts raced with the engines. The doctor had destroyed the Narrows for the time being, but he might yet have a valuable part to play in the recovery operation. Where Lucius Fox would be groping in the dark to formulate an antidote that could be carried in the water, an antidote that would be effective when consumed orally rather than inhaled, Crane had years of research and experience with the toxin.

Batman hadn't been able to save Ra's Al Ghul from the choices he had made. But Crane was different. He couldn't be destined to spend the rest of his life staring at a grey wall in the institution he had once presided over, not when there was work he could be doing to save the city.

The lights hit the curtain of falling water ahead of him, splintering into a thousand tiny fragments as the car punched through the waterfall.

After the darkness of the road the electric overheads of the cave seemed jarringly bright. Up on the roof above his head the few bats that had returned from their nightly foray jittered and scuffled, disturbed by the engine noise and the sharp slamming of the car door.

He wondered if the noise had disturbed anything else.

The key was still in the storeroom lock and in the few seconds it took put his hand on his gun and push the door open he thought how foolish he had been earlier on to imagine that the doctor could have escaped. He peered into the gloom of the cell.

Crane was sat with his back against the stone wall of the storeroom, head down, picking idly at the scabs on the back of his hands. He looked small and crumpled and hopelessly lost and Bruce felt a dull twinge in his stomach. Every time he thought he'd hardened his heart sufficiently to see Crane without compassion, and every time he failed again. It was easier to let Batman take over.

"Crane?"

There was no response, but he thought that the doctor's lips were moving under the dark curtain of hair.

"Crane?"

As the psychiatrist slowly raised his head to look up at the doorway, long dirty fringe tumbling down into his eyes, Batman realised with a cold shock of horror that something was terribly wrong. Everything about the doctor's body language had shifted, his shoulders square, blue stare direct and challenging. Crane's lips were wet and red, his eyes unnaturally bright, and he was smiling the kind of smile that might warn even a shark to keep away.

"Yes?" Crane's chin lifted, his head tilted back a little. The heavy lidded eyes gazed contemptuously into Batman's own and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that the drugs had done more harm than good. The bag of food Alfred had prepared earlier that evening lay untouched on the floor where Batman had dropped it.

"The drugs?" Batman's voice was terse, clipped, he couldn't believe that this was where his hopes were going to finish up, that Crane was, finally, beyond saving.

"A distraction. In the end." Crane pouted and twisted his head further back against the wall, his eyes alive with scorn and a kind of dark delight.

"This isn't a game Crane." The psychiatrist's pleasure in Batman's discomfort was making him angry again. He couldn't let himself forget that Crane was a master of manipulation. This could all be an act, a trick to knock him off his guard. He tightened his grip on the butt of the gun.

"All the people . . ." Crane murmured and his voice dropped away into a sad whisper. "All the people that you care for . . ."

Batman took a step forward, towering over the diminutive figure now sat so still and so calm. "What? What did you say?"

Crane toppled slowly towards him, landing on his hands, forcing Batman to take a step away. With a slow frown ofconcentration he began to crawl painfully towards the door, the stiffness of his movements betraying the injuries that covered his thin frame.

"A man who wears a mask has got _something_ to hide. Trust me. Once I used to be a psychiatrist." There was a savage undertow to the words that were said so lightly.

Batman found something horribly mesmeric in Crane's jerky crawl, the kind of revulsion that normally attached to a spider, and yet there was a strange fascination as well. He took an involuntary step back to avoid the touch of Crane's body on the side of his leg, shuddered at the thought.

"Psychiatrist . . ." Crane looked back over his shoulder, his neck horribly twisted in an effort to meet Batman's eyes. "Those poor people . . ." He was still smiling that cold scornful smile and Batman longed to wipe it off his face.

"They will tell you it's for their own good. When they come to take them away." Crane reached up a hand to push the tangled hair away form his face. His voice had become reasonable now, professionally disinterested. "They will tell you they went . . . _crazy_."

He resumed his crawl, eyes still shining up into the Batmask, thin body still dragging itself towards the open door. "You'll be allowed _plenty_ of visiting time . . ."

The reasonable note drained away into the sharp scornful tones that Batman had heard far too much of. "And they will beg you to kill them, plead with you to make it stop. . . and then the orderlies will take you away and visiting time will be over for another week . . ."

And questions of right and wrong suddenly became irrelevant in the urgent need to stop that bitter poisonous voice from drilling any further into his skull. The kick landed on the doctor's ribs with a thud and a sickening crack. Crane folded up like a paper doll, doubling sharply over his injured side, but his eyes never left Batman's face for an instant.

"Close to home Batman?" Voice no more than a choking whisper, lips frozen in a sneer.

"How about you, Crane?" Batman loomed over the prone body, a dark angel of vengeance, rage clouding his vision. "You got family?"

The psychiatrist's pale strained face cracked into a disarmingly innocent smile.

"Not . . . any more." And the slightest tinge of pleasure blended with an eerie wistfulness in the low voice. Then Crane's eyes winced shut and he slumped to the ground like a broken toy.

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Thanks for reading. Reviews are more than welcome . . .


	13. Didn’t need me to give him hell

Thanks for the reviews.

Things get a little bit darker. Reviews much appreciated.

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Crane seemed to weigh far less now than he had when Batman had first carried him out of Arkham. Back when he had still believed in redemption, still seen the potential in a pretty face and an innocent smile. Back when everything had been simple.

Now nothing was simple and he no longer knew what was necessary. He propped the limp body carefully up in the wooden chair Alfred had insisted he keep beside his workbench. At the time he had wondered exactly what the point of the chair was, but he was beginning to realize that he had been shortsighted. He had been shortsighted about a lot of things.

There were enough plastic ties in his belt to loosely secure Crane's ankles to the two front legs, to take a couple of tight turns about the thin forearms and strap them to the arms of the chair. The white ties shone brightly against the rusty orange fabric. He wished he could have restrained Crane's hands a little better but he was safe enough for now.

"Now what are we doing?" Crane's voice was querulous, irritable. It seemed that the last restraint had been fastened just in time.

"I'm going to ask you some questions. You are going to tell me everything you know." If you can, Batman thought, and cynicism forced him to admit that it looked unlikely. He was so tired. He couldn't keep this up for long. The time for playing had passed hours ago.

He took the gun out of his belt, deliberately released the safety catch and set it down beside him on the bench. Crane watched without comment, his head hanging down loosely between his shoulders, lips moving very slightly.

"I need you to make me an antidote."

Crane's head lifted up sharply, the blue eyes looked him full in the face, dancing amusement flickering across the mocking smile.

"You need me? I'm touched."

Batman wished Crane would have the grace to look afraid. Remembered with a slight twist of pleasure the terror in the psychiatrist's face the first time he had held him, the wide blue eyes gazing up at him, the pale skin that had been concealed by the mask. Remembered the fear on the faces of Falcone's drug runners, the way Falcone had scrabbled in the dirt like a dog trying to get away from him.

"Now, that's power you can't buy. That's the power of fear." Who had said that? And where had he ended up? Batman smiled grimly to himself. Crane would learn that Batman was a force to be feared.

"Scarecrow?" he said experimentally.

And Crane laughed, a low ugly sound, the loose lipped smile making no move from his lips to his eyes.

"Tell me," he said, "who do you see when you look in the mirror?" He lifted his chin away from his chest, tilted his head coquettishly, let his tongue run slowly over his lower lip. "Does he have your daddy's eyes?"

Then Batman hit him hard in the face. And it felt good.

The psychiatrist's head snapped back over the top of the chair. When he came back up there was a tiny bead of red blood welling up from the corner of his mouth where the fist had landed, but his eyes were still open and mocking and his face was set in a sneer.

"How . . . basic." Crane's voice dripped with sarcasm.

Batman hit him again, hit him before he could say anything else. Hit him, really, before _he _could say anything else. He had exposed himself enough already. Now it was Crane's turn to give something away, and Batman had all the time in the world. The legs of the chair scraped back across the stone floor, as Crane came back upright like a swimmer breaking the surface.

Batman half smiled. All his rage was burning itself out, a roman candle of fury sputtering into red embers in his chest. He could feel one knuckle inside the glove, raw and wet, he must have split the skin on Crane's jawbone. He hoped so.

"This is . . . unnecessary." The psychiatrist's voice was still calm but his breathing was uneven, painful.

"I don't think so."

"Let me show you." Crane looked sideways up at him, a patient smile floating over his swollen lips. "You see, you can keep hitting me all night. Eventually I may pass out. Or get whiplash." He ran his tongue around his mouth, wincing delicately at the taste of his own blood.

"It's so . . . _boring_." His long lashes fluttered seductively. "What you need is some variety. A little . . . creativity. I don't think there's anything you can teach me about fear." Crane's soft voice was deep and hypnotic and Batman, tired and numbedby the force of his own rage, was lured into listening.

"Uncertainty. Uncertainty is the key. You want me to talk?"

Crane lifted his right hand up, as far as the restraints would let him, twisted his wrist and angled his little finger down against the wooden arm of the chair.

"Five fingers, two hands, the possibilities are endless." He raised his head to look at Batman and his eyes were defiant. "All our fears are based in the imagination. And what we fear most is the future. Anticipation . . ." He arched his spine against the backrest, face white, lips a tightstripe drawn across the dirt and the blood. " . . . of pain." His eyes shut tight, fine lines spreading across his face. And teeth gritting together he pushed down hard against the wooden arm of the chair.

In the total silence Batman heard the fragile bone snap like a wet twig. Crane collapsed gently forward against the restraints. He was breathing hard and his eyes were half closed. Tiny beads of sweat were sparkling on his forehead. For the first time, Batman, confused and horrified, had absolutely no idea what to do next.

For a moment there was only the sound of the psychiatrist's shallow breathing, and somewhere in the distant background the roar of the waterfall. It was quiet enough for Batman to hear the rapid pulse of his own heart throbbing painfully in his exhausted head.

Then Crane gave a little sigh, breathed out and looked up at Batman through the tangled black mess of his hair, drying blood streaking his face. There was a sad sweet smile hovering on his grey lips as he said "_Still_ not talking?" And passed out cold.

Batman stood motionless, alone in the harsh yellow light, struggling to control the sick wave of hopelessness that was washing away at his heart. On his right hand he could see dark streaks of wet staining the fabric of the glove around the knuckles, red streaks like the burns on Crane's cheek.

He put the gun back into his belt. And then, as he had known he would do, as he should have done in the beginning, he did the same thing he had always done when faced with a problem he couldn't solve on his own. He picked up the radio.

"Alfred? I'm going to need some help."


	14. I have become a silent movie

Another relatively short chapter but with another in the pipeline.

Thanks for all the reviews of the last chapter (blushes). I'm happy that people like the way things are going. If 'like' is the right word. Let's just say that inside Crane's head is a very dark place to be . . .

Bruce doesn't really know who he is anymore. And he wonders if it matters.

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The stuttering beep and crackle of the radio died away like whispers into the murmur of the waterfall, and Bruce turned back towards Crane. His heart sank. The doctor was still slumped against the restraints, his head hanging down, hair obscuring his face, the dirty tatters of the orange suit hanging off his wasted frame.

And Bruce felt more hatred than he had known was possible, more hate than he could contain. Hate that was turning with a grinding inevitability into guilt, and following the guilt, speeding like an ambulance chaser through the chaos of his mind was the shame. Crane looked so . . . broken.

He leant down, and gently cupped the doctor's chin in his palm, lifted the fallen head up gently with his gloved hand, noticing his knuckles still bleeding through the black fabric. The angled face was tranquil, almost peaceful in victory.

Because Crane had won and Batman had lost and he didn't need a psychiatrist to tell him what that meant. Because somewhere Batman had crossed the line between justice and vengeance and somewhere back on that line Bruce had left what once seemed like an important part of his soul behind.

Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share. Ducard again.

And what had Bruce said to him, momentarily ablaze with defiance, safe in the knowledge that he was _right_. "That's why it's so important. It separates us from them."

But Batman had never thought that, because a part of Batman was still standing in the corridor of the lawcourts, a gun in his hand, waiting to serve his own judgment on the man who had killed his parents and shattered his childhood. Waiting to taste his vengeance, sweeter than wine, sweeter than Rachel's soft lips, sweeter than life . . .

With the instinct of a caught out child Bruce wiped some of the blood away from the razor edge of Crane's left cheekbone with his sleeve, trying to conceal the damage that fists and hunger and cold had left furrowed into the once smooth features. There was far more blood than he had thought there would be, blood that stained his glove so that he could no longer tell what had been his and what was Crane's.

The doctor's skin was starting to discolour, the bruising beginning to show. One plum shaded eye was swelling slowly shut.

Bruce kept his gaze averted from Crane's awkwardly splayed hand. The sharp crack of the bone breaking was still replaying on a constant loop inside his head. He wondered if it would ever go away.

Dirt mixed with the blood and the sweat and the traces of tears that streaked Crane's once pretty face. Too pretty, Bruce thought. Pretty enough to tempt Batman towards destruction. Pretty enough for even the red blistered tracks of the tazer to look like a trophy of war rather than a disfigurement on a guilty man. The mark of Cain.

With the doctor helpless it was easy to forget all the cold malice and spite that had driven Batman to anger and despair. That had driven Batman like a goaded animal to a place where Bruce had never wanted to be. Means to an end, he thought. But he didn't believe it for a second.

Head full of hurt he stared numbly down into Crane's strangely innocent face, small and fragile in his hand, and wondered where to go from here. Where to stop.

"Sir?"

Alfred was standing silently in the entrance to the cave, a small bag in one hand. His eyes swept past Bruce to the chair and his face froze.

Bruce let Crane's head drop back to his chest. Stepped forward, blocking Alfred's view. But it was too late for that.

"I know what you must be thinking . . ."

Alfred didn't look at him, kept staring at Crane, tied down, pale, broken. "I would imagine not sir."

And one day, Bruce thought, you catch yourself wishing you had never existed . . . so he could be spared the pain. He dropped his eyes, took a long breath of cold air.

Alfred walked slowly past him, his gaze never leaving the small figure in the chair. Inspecting the tight restraints, the dried blood on the suit, the pale face so indelibly marked with the impression of Batman's fist.

It wasn't all my fault, Bruce thought angrily, struggling to suppress a ridiculous childish impulse to deny responsibility.

The butler knelt down beside the chair, and Bruce's brows drew together as he saw him looking at Crane's hand. At the sickly unnatural angle of the little finger, twisted into a grotesque gesture. It didn't look self inflicted. He didn't blame Alfred for drawing the obvious conclusion.

"Dr Crane?" Alfred's voice was very gentle. The voice of somebody consoling an injured child. Bruce fought the memories back, the empty feeling in his chest starting to make his stomach turn. Standing in a window, dry eyed, a silent child watching the funeral mourners . . .

Crane's dark lashes fluttered, and Bruce shifted forward a little, the muscles of his shoulders tensing.

And when Crane's eyes opened he finally saw all the fear that he had longed for such a short while ago. Saw Crane look round him with startled terror, a blue eyed Bambi pumped up on crystal meth, his darkly bruised lips parting in a silent cry.

Alfred's face was expressionless. "Dr Crane?"

Crane's eyes found Batman's face and for a split second Batman saw behind the carefully constructed mask. Saw a brief flicker of pure triumph, swiftly extinguished behind a convincingly wide eyed look of alarm.

"My hand . . ." Crane's voice was the merest whisper, his big blue eyes turned imploringly on Alfred. "I think it's broken . . ."

Bruce turned away, his brow working. There was only so much he could take. Alfred never saw Batman, never had, only saw Bruce, the boy he had raised all dressed up in a bulletproof suit and mask.

But Bruce knew by now that there were some situations that only Batman could handle. Because if he had to choose between grief and anger he chose anger. Every time.

Minutes later the car slammed against the track with a snarl of spitting stones, the exhaust pumping clouds of black smoke into the stillness of the morning. Batman leant forward over the wheel, eyes narrowed, his face contracted, steering the car back towards the Gotham skyline, heading for the grey cloud of smog that permanently veiled the city. His lips drew back over his teeth in a gaunt wolf's smile.

Someone was going to pay. And in Gotham it was never going to be hard to find someone who deserved to.

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Thanks again for reading. More to follow shortly.

If you have the time to please do leave a review, comments and opinions are all much appreciated . . .


	15. Everything he's supposed to be

More! Thanks again for the reviews . . .

I'll just say again that they aren't mine. They're free! Er, except that actually they work very hard making money for DC. Not me. Curses.

Please let me know if you like it . . . soon to be updated . . .

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Sunshine showed the dirt of Gotham's streets in an unforgiving light, motes of dust swirling like birds in the dizzying gaps between the buildings. A hunter in search of prey, every sense alert, every atom of his being focused on his purpose Batman stalked the rooftops.

His eyes narrowed to thin slits, pupils pinprick dots in the bright midmorning light. Since Batman had made Gotham's darkest night an uncertain refuge for crime the city's seedier residents had taken to using the hours of daylight to carry out their illegal activities. Now they would learn that sunshine was no guarantee of safety.

Wayne Manor was gone now forever and Bruce Wayne could go to join it for all he cared. The loss of the house would serve as a front for the retirement of the Prince of Gotham from public life and Batman would rule supreme over the city, striking fear into the hearts of the criminal fraternity, leaving no stone unturned in his ceaseless quest for justice.

He had let himself get soft. He had let the appeal of a double life lure him into mistakes, mistakes which were going to cost him dearly. Giving up his life of visible luxury was only going to be the start. From now on there would only be Batman, Batman alone, triumphant and unaided and separated from all the parts of Bruce which threatened to bring him down into the dirt he claimed to despise.

Batman _über alles_, he thought, face twisting into an exhausted sneer, and far inside he slammed the door shut on the fading memory of Alfred's voice. "I would imagine not sir." On the distant sound of Crane's soft bitter voice. "Does he have your daddy's eyes?" The crack of a bone breaking. He wondered why he could no longer remember what Rachel sounded like . . .

On a distant rooftop a child screamed.

Batman crossed the three intervening buildings like a streak of black lightning, his trained body responding to his demands despite the awful tiredness that was threatening to overwhelm him. Balanced on a ledge overlooking the top of one of Gotham's busiest banks he looked down, black cape flapping in the breeze.

Three men, one dragging a small struggling blonde boy, moving awkwardly together across the flat roof towards the door to the stairs. Two visible guns, both being pointed wildly around at the sky. This was going to be a pleasure.

The men grappled with their reluctant charge, apparently unwilling to inflict any serious damage on the boy but all too clearly frustrated by his resistance. The two on guard duty were bizarrely jumpy, looking over their shoulders, checking every angle of the roof for possible surveillance. As they rounded the head of the stairwell there was an almost audible sigh of relief. And then they stopped and stared in horror at the grim black figure standing like a statue of Death by the stairwell door.

"Going down?" Batman allowed himself a small superior smile.

Then he lashed out at the first of the men, the force of the blow sending a tremor shocking through his body, absorbing the recoil with practiced grace, spinning to hit out again, higher, sending the man crashing to the floor. The wind tore briefly at his cape, the material dragging behind him like a tortured shadow.

Two of them now, the third man throwing aside the child like a sack of garbage, both running towards him. Daylight eliminated the element of surprise, the advantages of his technology. He would have to do this the old fashioned way.

The first shot hit him hard in the chest, and for an instant he wondered if it had penetrated through the Kevlar breastplate. Then the sharp and unmistakable pain of a broken rib, agonizing but far from mortal, ripped through his chest and he knew he had been mistaken. If he was lucky it would only be cracked.

The kidnapper holding the gun stared at him in amazed horror. The bullet had left a mark scarred into the Batsuit, a dark hole branded directly over his heart. A better shot than most of Gotham's rent-a-thug mob, or just lucky? The second shot gave Batman no time to ponder such questions, too busy making sure there wasn't a third.

A quick step to one side, the grapnel gun pulled out from his belt, a single grip of the trigger, and the man holding the gun was knocked out to one side like a bowling pin. Before he had a chance to regain his nerve Batman snapped the recoil on and reeled the gasping kidnapper in towards him like a hooked fish. One hard punch and he was out of the picture, the line snugly securing him to a convenient railing.

When he turned around the third man was holding theterrified boy in front of him like a shield.

"Don't shoot." His voice was harsh. "We wouldn't want the boy to come to any harm now, would we?"

And if there was anything he really really hated it was the kind of lowlife cowardly scum who would defend himself with a helpless child. The cape swirled back around him, covering his hands for just long enough . . .

"What are you doing?" The kidnapper's voice was high with fear and Batman saw the dirty fingers tighten around the child's exposed throat. Then he threw the bat shaped slither of metal straight and true and the noise it made when it hit the man's forehead was both deeply satisfying and deeply repulsive. He watched the fingers uncurl and the body crumple to the ground, and he felt nothing at all.

The boy began to cry, quietly and without tears. Once Batman had known what that felt like. But he had made his choice. His grief was of no use to anyone. His anger was cleaning the streets of Gotham like purifying fire.

"Don't move." The child's face was a picture of terror, too frightened to distinguish between captor and saviour. No wonder, Batman thought.

Then he dismissed the boy from his mind. The kidnapper he had tied to the railing was starting to come round. Batman's ribcage throbbed, a sharp pain spiking through to his spine every time he breathed in. He had a score to settle with this one.

He untied him first. It allowed him to feel more equal. Besides, Crane had proved to him that the power balance between captor and captured was not determined by who was free and who was tied down. He could learn from his mistakes. Just thinking about Crane made him want to kick something. Something soft that would squeak when the boot went in.

"Who are you working for?"

He had the man by the scruff of the neck now, shaking him brutally, enjoying the fear, the confusion, the pain. He was ready to do some damage.

Your anger is your purest emotion. Ducard had told him that, long ago, back in the cold snows of the mountains, where their breath had surrounded them in swirling white clouds. But this didn't feel pure.

It felt like hitting Crane, the pleasure and the guilt and the sense of duty and the feeling of his fist splitting into soft flesh. It felt dirty and good and wrong and like everything that he had kept at bay for years. Like shooting Joe Chill, the way he had imagined it, back before he cut and ran. Like the look on Ducard's face when he realised that the brakes were gone. It felt like the end of the world.

This time there were going to be no mistakes.

"_Who are you working for?_"

"Who _are_ you?" The man's voice shook with fear.

"I am Batman." And it was the truth.

"Please. He'll kill me." The face was as white as chalk, the voice a harsh whisper. His eyes were looking over Batman's shoulder, searching the corners of the roof.

"That's the last thing you should worry about."

The man's terrified gaze flicked back up to Batman's black mask. "_Please_ . . ." he said a second time, the obvious terror in his eyes eloquently begging for protection.

Then, shockingly, he began to laugh, a raw sounding high pitched laugh coming straight from his chest. In a few seconds he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, struggling to double over. Batman stared at him in horror, barely able to hold on to the shaking shoulders, staring straight into the red open mouth, the twisted face.

The laughter turned into screams, tears pouring down the man's contorted cheeks, his chest heaving, hands clawing at the air. He gasped for breath, choked, coughed, and a fine spray of blood spattered his shirt and flew up into Batman's face.

Batman, sick to his stomach, let the man's shoulders go, pushing him away. He pitched once, retching, wildly flailing towards Batman. Then he rocked back onto his heels, still laughing, suspended for a moment in the warm air like a dangling puppet, and toppled gently over the edge of the building.

The falling body crunched like a rotten apple onto the pitiless surface of the road seconds before Batman hit the ground beside it. It twitched once, then lay still, the sunlight picking out the red stains spotting the front of the grey shirt.

Batman swallowed hard, back on his feet, eyes already scanning the rooftops on the other side of the street. He was pretty sure the man had been dead before he'd hit the ground. In the back of his mind he could see the playing card he been shown that morning, the laughing figure, face cracked into a rictus of false humour. He thought he knew who to blame.

A movement in the alleyway behind him made him spin round sharply, hand reaching for the gun on his hip.

"Nice work." Gordon's tone was as dry as sandpaper.

Batman looked down at the corpse lying at his feet. Ran a brief mental replay of the last two minutes. The interrogation, Batman pushing the man away, the body falling to the ground and Batman landing a split second too late to come between it and the tarmac. Looking good . . .

And, oh Christ, up there on the roof there was a dead or dying man with a Bat shaped piece of titanium embedded in his forehead.

"I can keep this out of the press." Gordon paused, meaningfully. "This time." And he looked very old and very tired.

"There's a kid up there."

"OK." Dismissive.

A siren wailed across the empty street, the blue lights skidding over the long rows of windows, the noise cutting off abruptly as the car pulled into the road.

A heartbeat, and Batman was gone.

Bruce tore off the mask, threw it across the car, wiped the back of his hand hard across his face, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to leave a trail of bright lights across his vision. So much for the future. And the drive back along the freeway seemed to take forever.

By the time he reached the gravel track a merciful darkness was starting to blunt the harsh edges of the day. He could barely keep his eyes open.

The lights of the car swept across the grey lawns, the reflections flickering back from the broken glass and fallen stone. Flickering back from the windows of the cottage. And there was no light shining back to greet him.

He wondered if Alfred was still tending to Crane. He didn't want to have to put the mask back on. But when the car bumped up into the Batcave he realized that that was the least of his problems.

The storeroom door was ajar and there was no trace of either Crane or Alfred. Instinctively Bruce turned to the workbench and saw only empty space where the Scarecrow's mask had been. And he had never run so fast in his whole life.

The door slammed into the hollow echo of an empty house and Bruce knew before he even reached the other side of the kitchen what he was going to find upstairs. His feet pounded on the wooden stairs, breath choking in his throat. Hands shaking so hard on the handle of the door that it was all he could do to force it clumsily round and throw the door back.

He had never been in Alfred's room before. It had never been necessary. He had never wondered . . . and now it was too late.

Heart racing, gun in his shaking hand, he sprang into the room. And it turned out that the absolute worst thing he could imagine having happened might not have been so bad after all.

The single bed was neatly made, the sheets pulled smoothly up over the pillow. But the rest of the room was bare, empty photo frames hanging like blank windows on the white walls. The wardrobe doors were open, but the only things hanging from the brass rail were vacant hangers and all he could see was his own reflection in the blank mirrored door.

There hadn't been much left after the fire. But everything that Alfred had salvaged was gone now.

On the bedside table, lying face down beside an angled reading lamp was a single photograph, the corners curled with age and when he turned it over he felt no surprise at meeting thesad cautious gaze of his own brown eyes.

Bruce sat staring numbly into space, his back resting against the foot of Alfred's narrow bed. And night fell over Wayne Manor.


	16. I may talk a little in my sleep tonight

Dear God, how did this get so long? If it's any consolation, I have more or less written the final chapter. I know where we're going, they're just taking their own sweet time over getting there. There will be an end . . . one day. Holy Crap Batman! I sound like J.K. Rowling!

Thank you so much for following along on the journey, your support and reviews are hugely appreciated by both myself and the boys. Dear boys.

I don't own them, mind. They own me. They wake me up in the middle of the night and make unhelpful suggestions regarding plot and characterisation. DC, help meeee! Call them off!

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It was pleasantly cool and shady in the garden. Crane twisted away from under Batman's hands, gave a delighted giggle at finding himself free and scooted off across the lawns. Batman never hesitated, never stopped to think, pulled the grapnel gun from his belt so fast he thought he must have ripped the material, aimed, fired . . . and saw Crane throw his arms up wildly, stumble and hit the ground.

The Dark Knight strode across the short stretch of scuffed grass to the place where Crane was now laying prone, slim hands pressed over his face, moaning softly. Grabbed him by the scruff of his jumpsuit, hauled him to his feet and shook him hard. Crane's eyes were wide with pain and shock, the bolt of the grapnel had hit him cleanly between the shoulder blades. He was gasping for breath.

Pitilessly Batman dragged him back across the unkempt reaches of the garden, making no allowances for the smaller man's obvious injury. Crane tripped and bumped over the rough ground, his feet barely keeping him upright, the wheezing turning into bouts of racking coughs and finally a choking pant that soothed Batman's vengeful soul. Little shit, he thought. That will teach him.

At the entrance to the cave they halted, not out of any desire to linger, but because Batman was trying to decide the best way to take Crane through the curtain of water falling heavily onto the rocks, its dark current carrying the first rain of the autumn storms lashing the hills around Gotham. Crane had gone almost completely limp as soon as he was allowed to come to a halt, his eyes rolling back in his head and his lower lip hanging slackly down, and Batman was forced to support him.

Hell, he had carried him before. He could do it again now. With an abrupt movement he scooped Crane off his feet, not that Crane was putting a lot of weight on them anyway, not that Batman wasn't already virtually holding the man up.

The path behind the roaring waterfall was narrow and slippery, treacherous in even ideal conditions. And conditions were far from ideal. He was damned if he wanted to do this more than once. There had been times when he had taken pleasure in the swift duck off the rocks to get in behind the falling water, when the consuming sound of the falls had filled him with a kind of joy. Now, with an Autumn flood draining down into the drop, and with the shivering body of a dangerous madman pressed against his chest he felt less pleasure and more grim duty in the climb.

The cold water splashed against his face as he transferred his weight onto the track behind the falls. As soon as he had a second to take his mind away from the present danger he looked down at Crane, huddled miserably in his arms, eyes pressed tightly shut. The doctor's blue lips were moving with the whispered rhythm of a prayer, a tiny pulse beating erratically under the translucent skin at his temples.

And, despite the deafening thud of the water hitting the pool below him, despite the fear and the exhilaration of the drop beneath and the slippery rock under his feet, Batman paused, lowered his head and tried to make out what it was that Crane was saying.

There was an instant of sweet echo shrouded peace. Then the small wet figure came suddenly alive in his arms, lashed wildly out at his face, thin arms swinging into his head, the pale face caught in a snarl of fury.

Batman's feet slid inexorably towards the rocky edge, skidding over the wet gravel as he struggled to contain the force of the psychiatrist's rage. For all the punishment Crane had taken over the last few days he was far from beaten, far from weak. It was a desperate man that battled now in Batman's arms, a last trick from an old master of misdirection, a man who was now fighting for survival as much as for freedom.

Crane's foot had found the wall of the passageway, his spine curved and braced against it, hands wrapped around Batman's throat. They slid a little further towards the edge, and now Batman was trying to get away, trying to dislodge Crane by whatever means. His only free hand groped uselessly against the belt over his hips, grasping for something, anything with which to cut loose the hold Crane had taken.

With a final push the doctor flung them away from the wall, Batman scrambling to retain some sort of purchase on the wet rocks. They were sliding now towards the edge, and he knew with a flash of foresight that if they hit the water like that then Crane would not let go. He imagined Alfred finding them there, bobbing like Halloween apples, wrapped tightly together in the cold bitter water, Crane's thin white hands still locked around his neck.

There was no time for games now. This was it, death or death, one black promise pitted against the other and there was no happy ending here. And, finally, he chose. Chose to do what was necessary.

And as the last pebbles crumbled away from the edge of the path and fell like meteors into the foaming pool, and Crane, lips still moving in some kind of jubilant chant, fastened his fingers, bandage and all, tighter around Batman's neck, so tightly that Batman could barely breathe, finally, finally, the hand he had worked to keep free gripped the smooth worn handle that stuck out from his belt like a piton on an ice climb.

The black knife went in so sweetly and so far that he thought for a second he had missed his aim, that he had mistakenly struck behind the doctor's back. Then with a heart stopping slowness Crane raised his head and looked, brokenly, into Batman's face. Batman looked back, not breathing.

The strong bony hands that had been so busily choking his life away gradually released their fierce hold on his neck, tension slackening until they were barely a shadow resting against his skin.

Crane looked so confused, confused and unhappy, like a little boy who had received a slap where he had expected praise. The mud and the sweat and the fine spray from the waterfall had mixed to a fine gloss on his skin, and he shone in the blue light like a dirty angel. Then his mouth formed a silent o of understanding, his body gave a convulsive little jerk and he toppled gently away from Batman's clasp.

It was all Batman could do to catch onto the psychiatrist's extended wrist before he disappeared down over the awful drop, and the jolt that it gave him nearly dislocated his own shoulder. Full length on the gritty floor, inch over painful inch he pulled the doctor back up onto the path beside him.

Crane was so wet now he might just as well have fallen in, the once bright orange of his suit turned to an unattractive shade of rust. His hair was lying over his face in sharp jags of black, the twisting mark of the burn livid against his pale skin. He lay still, his ribcage rising and falling unevenly, his breathing fast and shallow. But his eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling without expression.

Once again Batman cursed the unkind fate that left Crane conscious at the most inconvenient of times. He would rather have done what he had to do while the doctor was still out cold, even if Bruce's rebellious heart told him he was a coward, worse than a coward, for wanting it that way.

When he reached down to his belt Crane made no attempt to get away, gave Batman no indication that he was even paying him any attention. His lips were moving again in a ceaseless whispered incantation, barely audible and in any case drowned out by the thundering rush of the water a few feet from his head.

Mechanically Batman released the safety catch, the tiny noise disappearing into the rumbling background like the sound of a dropped pin. But it was enough to make Crane turn his head a fraction towards him, enough for him to see in the grey shade of the corridor that the words Crane was repeating, over and over, like some charm to keep death, or fear, or both at bay were; "it isn't real . . . it isn't real".

And Batman was temporarily gone. There was only Bruce, dressed like a pantomime fool in a masquerader's costume, silently praying for strength. For the courage to do what was right. For Crane to give him a sign, just a small sign . . .

"Give me one good reason not to do it . . ."

And Crane looked straight up into his face, the light of his huge blue eyes veiling seemingly unfathomable depths. Bruce stared down into those expressive eyes and for a fleeting instant he saw a sadness there that almost broke his heart.

But Batman's heart was cold and as hard as stone and little trifling emotions like sorrow and pain had no meaning for him anymore. There was only justice, and justice, like madness, was a cruel and remorseless mistress to those who had fallen under her spell. His mouth set into a hard line. And Bruce was extinguished like the failing flame of a candle in the midday sun.

Below him Crane's bee stung lips parted in the mocking ghost of a smile. At the corner of one eye, bottomless and sleepy and bluer by far than any sky Batman had ever seen, a single diamond drop of water hung glinting on a dark lash, endlessly reflecting the black mouth of the heavy gun. Batman pulled the trigger and the sound of the shot filled the world.

Then blood splashed against his face, warm and wet, the hot smell of salt and the iodine mingling with the metallic taste of cordite. The kick of the gun had temporarily forced him to shut his eyes, bright red pinpricks of light were dancing like tiny demons across his retinas.

When he eventually looked down again Crane's eyelids were softly closed. The doctor's face looked peaceful, younger, all the tiny lines of care smoothed from the skin as though it had been caressed by a compassionate hand. Blood was starting to creep down his face from the entry wound in the top of his skull, dark defined lines of liquid making the clear skin seem whiter, purer than it had a moment before.

The echoes of the shot were still dying away along the distant walls of the cave. He bent to press a finger against the side of Crane's head, knowing the truth long before the stillness under the soft skin confirmed it. It was over.

Standing up, replacing the gun in its holster, the shiny metal of the barrel misted with condensation from the damp air, he took his last long look at Jonathan Crane. Appreciated once again the manner in which Crane always appeared innocent in repose, a weary boy, tired after a long day, finally resting . . . and he hoped that wherever Crane was now he would find more peace than life had ever offered him.

The doctor's face was already changing in death, the poise and the grace that had served him so well in life imperceptibly melting away. He looked older, more worn than he had a few moments before, deep lines beginning to creep around his eyes, around the corners of his mouth. The fair purity of his white skin was fading, his frailty becoming less obvious.

Something old and hideous tugged sharply at Batman's heart, a memory of something, something that he chose not to remember. The torn shell of the orange Arkham inmates uniform was merging into the puddles of water that Crane had fallen in, merging into darker more defined lines, the lines of a gentleman's suit. Batman's head swam.

Heart full of apprehension now, every breath he took cutting deep into his chest, Batman reached down to touch the face of the man who he had just killed, let his gaze bit by bit follow his hand . . . and saw there, spread like a stain over the stone floor at his feet the bleeding murdered body of his own father.

- - -

Heart pounding, shaking body slick with cold sweat, Bruce jerked upright in the coils of his wrecked bed and stared wildly at the wall.

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Reviews as always much appreciated. Thanks for reading.


	17. No escape for you except in someone else

Well, hello again. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused back there . . . Just to say – the last chapter is still a little way off. In sight maybe, but we aren't there yet . . . so don't go getting too excited.

Guess I'll just stick to the story and leave the author's notes to the professionals!

Thanks for the reads and the reviews.

Oh.They aren't mine. They belong to someone else (pouts).

Bruce can't sleep any more.

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Cold grey light filtered through the kitchen window, just enough to see the open cuts on his knuckles as he turned the tap to fill the kettle. He hadn't wanted to sleep anymore. Wasn't sure if he would be able to anyway. His heart was still scratching an uneven rhythm into the walls of his chest.

And he knew what he was going to do now. It wouldn't be that hard. He had run before. Only difference was that this time he didn't think anyone would come looking for him when he was gone.

He wondered how far he would have to go to forget. And he remembered the still crisp air of the mountain ridges, the clear blue light shining off the peaks. The piled snow wrapped over the dark rocks like a white fur and the steep winding paths leading up to the high places. The ramshackle villages tumbled together in the valleys. The wild call of the birds circling overhead. It might be far enough.

And he remembered the dark damp cells of the thief's prison, the brown filthy slop that constituted meals, the necessary violence and the weary endless boredom and the grudging respect of the guards. And that might be enough too.

He opened the coffee jar and dropped two heaped teaspoons of granules into the bottom of a mug. He was going to need it.

The coffee was dark and bitter and smelt like the air in every roadhouse diner he had ever driven away from. Instant coffee and steam and damp and people leaving. He drank it while it was still almost too hot to hold, letting the burn of the liquid sear down into his stomach in a sweet red line of pain and caffeine.

When he put the mug back down on the draining board his mind was made up. There were just a few things he needed to do.

He stuffed his things into a bag, a jumper, a pair of jeans, a razor and a lump of soap. The picture Alfred had left behind. His passport, an army knife, and he was ready. He shut the house door quietly behind him, and he didn't bother to lock it. There was nothing left behind that he cared much about losing.

It was still surprisingly cold, the wind blowing up over the lawn into his face was almost icy. It carried the faintest trace of ash, the last whisper of Wayne Manor as it had been before. He hoisted the bag onto his shoulder, felt the slight weight of his last links with his home dig into his back. There was just one more thing he needed to do.

The dirt path down through the trees was wet with dew, the dangling leaves dripping soft cold splashes of water into his hair. It was still a little too early for the birds to be awake. By the time they began to move about the garden he would be a long way down the highway to the sea. Find a ship, make his way on board. He was fit enough that with a little ready cash he would easily be able to find a berth. Foreign ship and no-one would even know who he was. Who he had been.

He clambered up the rocks beside the waterfall, feet sliding on the wet path and for a second he wished that his dream had been true. At least in part. Crane was the loose end he had failed to tie up. Turned out that he didn't have it, really. The will to do what was necessary. He doubted he had the discernment to decide exactly what was necessary. Ducard had been right about him all along.

He missed Ducard, suddenly, and with a surprising stab of pain. Ducard had been so confident, so absolutely convinced about the rectitude of his own moral judgement. Of course, Ducard had also been insane. He wondered if there was a correlation there somewhere that he was missing.

And obviously there was. He knew after all that Bruce, with all his confused conflicted questioning, had become absorbed in Batman's frighteningly clear vision of right and wrong, and he knew in his heart that Batman was very very far from being sane. Alfred had been right. "You're getting lost inside this monster of yours." It all made sense really. He should have asked the psychiatrist when he had the chance, he thought, and the image made him smile for the first time since he had strapped Crane to the chair the previous night.

He just wanted to see the Batcave one last time. So he would remember how it had been, when it was good. It didn't look like that now. The chair where he had last seen Crane was still standing beside the bench, empty now, the plastic ties on the arms cut through. There was a small stain marking the stone floor there, and heknew it must be blood, but the knowledge left him cold and unfeeling

The Batsuit he had left in the cottage. He wouldn't be needing it anymore. He imagined the mask must still be on the seat of the car where he had thrown it the previous night.

An innate instinct for tidiness nagged at him to replace the tools on the bench in their box. The toolkit had been his father's once, the wooden handles smoothed down over the years by use and age. Bruce had liked using it, found the rhythms and routines comforting. Letting his hands sit in the same places as his father's, guiding the blade over the wood, following the grain. Briefly he contemplated dropping the box of tools into the swirling pool beneath the waterfall, watching the dark waters close over it. But it would be a melodramatic gesture. Someone else would find them useful one day. He shut the lid and it closed with a soft click.

The door to the storeroom was still half ajar. He pushed it shut, turned andlooked around at the place he had once believed would be his salvation. And he needed to sit down.

He let himself slide gently down against the door, his aching back grateful for the firm support of the wooden panels. He supposed Fox would take back the car. He was going to miss the car. In all his loss it was a small thing but it still hurt a little bit more than he had expected it would. But he had lost more than the car. He let his head drop down onto his chest and he wondered where Alfred was now.

And a voice behind him, quiet but very close to his ear said "Can't sleep Bruce?"

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More soon, please let me know what you think . . .


	18. Through trying now, it's a big relief

Apologies for the delayed service . . . please don't hold it against me!

On the other hand this is a good long chapter so maybe things even out. Updates will still be sporadic but I hope to have a bit more time soon. Whether or not that time will actually get spent writing is another matter altogether.

Thanks for the reads and the reviews. All forms of feedback are welcome here.

I still don't own them.

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There was a second when Bruce very nearly stopped breathing. He had been so certain he was alone. The hairs on the back of his neck rose up in a slow cold wave running towards the top of his skull and he shivered. Because it was a voice he knew only too well. He had kind of hoped he would never have to hear it again.

"I thought you would be long gone."

Crane's weight shifted slightly against the panels of the door behind Bruce's shoulders. "I didn't have anywhere else to go." The voice was subdued, a little sad.

For once Bruce thought that Crane might just be telling him the truth. It was said simply enough, but there was the faintest catch of desperation tugging at the words. And, despite everything, the thought that Crane had nowhere to left run to, nowhere better than the place where he had been so recently hurt, cut into Bruce like a rusty blade twisting deep into his stomach.

He settled back against the door, closed his eyes and rubbed gently at his forehead with the ball of his hand. The key was still sitting in the lock above his head. It would only take a second to turn it, to leave his final problem locked up in the cave below Wayne Manor. He could be out on the road in a few minutes, find a ship, leave Gordon an anonymous tip off regarding the whereabouts of Arkham's missing director. He owed Gordon something.

Crane shifted again and the distant vision of the golden mountains faded into the grey dust of the stone floor at Bruce's feet.Against his better judgement and thecreeping numbness that was slowing his thoughts there was one thing that still stood out against the grey.Crane was the puzzle piece he couldn't solve, the mystery he kept coming back to.

"What makes you think you know who I am?" And he already knew that he hadn't been using Batman's voice. He wasn't even sure if he could.

"Come on Bruce. How long ago did you stop looking at the faces of staff? Not every family in Gotham is pretentious enough to employ a genuine English butler."

And suddenly Bruce was done with pretending. There were more important things than Batman, more important things than Bruce Wayne. He fought to keep the emotion out of his voice.

"Where is he?"

He could hear the pleasure barely concealed in Crane's easy drawl. "Why, let me out and I'll be happy to tell you."

Bruce began to think that maybe Crane had guessed his identity days before, had been toying with him all along, saving his trump card for the final showdown. Does he have your daddy's eyes, indeed.

He pushed himself painfully up the door until he was standing, the dull pain from his cracked rib still encircling his chest. He had already mentally consigned Crane to hell, accepted that the psychiatrist had made good his chance of escape. What difference was anything else going to make? How much would it really matter?

And giving up turned out to be surprisingly easy once everything he cared about was gone. It almost felt good. He moved clear of the archway, standing to one side.

"Ok." His voice sounded flat and dead, as if all the life had drained away long before.

The door into the storeroom dragged open with a slight creak. Bruce realised that he was holding his breath, and he cursed himself for it.

And Crane stepped lightly out of the shadows like an actor taking to the stage, hands thrust deep into the pockets of a pair of grey trousers. Self possessed. His dark hair fell down around his face, half hiding the blue eyes behind the glasses.

Bruce vaguely recognized the white shirt that Crane was wearing as having once been his,almost smiled at the way the stiffly crumpled cuffs fell down past the tips of the doctor's fingers. The shirt was buried under two wool pullovers, one grey, one black, both a little too big for Crane's slight frame. His face had been washed and the lack of dirt made the bruises and the burns stand out starkly against the pale skin. A small strip of plaster ran across one side of his mouth and half consciously Bruce looked away, down at the split knuckles of his own right hand.

It was amazing how much difference the glasses made to Crane's face. He looked mild, self contained, studious. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, Bruce thought wryly. For all the punishment and the lack of food and the long hours alone in the dark Crane appeared surprisingly fresh.

The doctor's heavy lidded eyes ran over him, amused and slightly superior, and he looked away, irritated. He couldn't deny that Crane seemed to be a whole lot saner than when he had last seen him.

"So . . . the Crown Prince of Gotham and the Batman are one and the same." The full lips hovered dangerously close to a smirk.

"I'm not the Prince of Gotham."

"But you are Bruce Wayne." Crane turned and walked away from him across the rocky floor of the Batcave, head turning slowly to take in the hanging canopy of bats, the lights, the fire blackened shaft of the elevator. "Nice place you've got here." And Bruce didn't even bother trying to work out whether it was said ironically or not. He had seen Crane's basement in Arkham.

"Your man." Crane was talking as he moved, keeping Bruce's attention on the words, hustling like a street magician fixing a con. "He left after he patched me up." He moved behind the workbench. "Gave me some clothes. Told me to turn onto the track and just keep walking." The bitter note that had laced his soft voice in the past was starting to creep back. There was an eerie edge to his calm smile.

"Do excuse me."

Crane's left hand went down into his pocket and for a second his face tightened in concentration while he searched around. After a moment he withdrew it and briefly studied the blue and white pill that was between his fingers before popping it into his mouth and swallowing it with a wince. His eyes were half shy, half daring Bruce to comment and Bruce turned away from their challenge, uncomfortable.

He wasn't sure he liked this new improved version of Crane anymore than the crazy one. He was certain he shouldn't trust him any more. But at least now he could begin to believe that Alfred was safe. Far away, but safe. There had been no trace of triumph in the doctor's voice when he mentioned him.

The psychiatrist hadn't moved, now rummaging inquisitively through the things on the bench, bright eyed, and Bruce noticed the clean white bandage wound tightly around his damaged finger, the very slight clumsiness of the usually graceful hands.

"So now what happens?"

"Come now. I'm sure we can come to some arrangement." Crane looked up at him and for a second Bruce was looking into the sweet complicit smile of a fellow conspirator. "Two educated men like us don't need to complicate things with violence."

And Bruce thought whatever Crane might or might not turn out be he was certainly not lacking in bravery. Bruce could have knocked him down there and then, left him bleeding on the floor of the cave. But he wasn't going to do that and he supposed that Crane knew it.

The psychiatrist gestured at the bag Bruce had left lying on the floor by the door. "Were you going somewhere?"

"I was leaving."

"Leaving?" Crane flicked awkwardly at the closed catch on the box of tools, opened the lid and inspected the contents.

"Leaving Gotham." Grudgingly Bruce recognized the well rehearsed trick, the leading repetition.

"I hope you run fast then."

Bruce looked at him quizzically.

"A man's got to run pretty fast to get away from himself." Crane didn't raise his eyes, hands busy in the box of tools.

"Are you trying to analyse me?" Horror and amusement jostled for place.

"I wouldn't dare." For a second Crane's eyes were alive with mischief, sparkling with something that Bruce, awestruck, recognized as fun. It had been such a long time since Bruce had really let himself enjoy anything without guilt. Survivor's guilt, if Crane really wanted to play at psychoanalysis.

"I have a proposition that you might find interesting. Assuming your plans to leave the city aren't immediately pressing." The doctor was still searching through the tools.

"What makes you think I would be interested in any proposition of yours?"

"You could describe it as mutually beneficial." Crane took a step back from the bench, eyes running over the cases lining the walls behind him and once again Bruce felt the familiar sinking sensation of being a backseat passenger to the doctor's chauffeur.

"What do you have that I could want?"

Crane's bruised lips moved into something close to a smile. "A water borne antidote? For the Narrows? You seem to have left the job of saving the city half finished."

Bruce's forehead tightened involuntarily. Once again Crane knew exactly which buttons to push. Am I really that transparent, he thought, already knowing the answer.

"And what do you want?"

"My freedom. I give you the antidote and you let me go."

"You could have had your freedom hours ago."

The doctor sniffed disdainfully. "I'm not accustomed to all this violence. Frankly I need an escort into Arkham to find the drugs that I need. I think you will do very well, assuming you can manage to resist any unnecessary heroics along the way."

Bruce rolled his eyes impatiently. Crane's posturing irritated him.

"So? Are you in?" The doctor paused, a wave of dark hair falling into his face, his cheeks slightly flushed. "Look . . ." He reached up and took off his glasses, carefully folded them and tucked them away in the pocket of his shirt. His voice had taken on the level patient tone of someone speaking to a not so bright child. "This doesn't have to be consensual."

And with a slight contraction of his chest Bruce finally realised the logic behind where Crane was standing. The significance of his proximity to the case on the wall, the case where Bruce had once kept the Batsuit locked away. Where the few weapons he allowed himself to carry were kept. It hadn't taken the psychiatrist long to find an advantage.

He watched, motionless, almost beyond caring as Crane reached into the cabinet and picked up one of the heavy guns, his good hand small and white against the black metal. The doctor prised the chamber open and span the barrel round with one finger, pale face brightening at the realization it was loaded.

"An unlocked gun cabinet? How careless of you." His tone was chiding. "Some one could get hurt." He snapped the gun back together, ran his thumb over the safety catch. There was a slight click, not quite loud enough to echo back from the walls. His hold on the gun was far from expert but Bruce felt quite sure he knew the basics. He remembered reading an article once saying that everybody knew how to hold a gun, that the grip of the finger on the trigger was intuitive, and he wondered when it was that he had first learned. He had never thought that shooting Joe Chill at point blank range would require much in the way of practice.

Crane smiled at him across the bench. "Nervous, Bruce?" He reached up and pushed the long hair back out of his face with the barrel of the gun, his gesture casual as his words. "You should have killed me when you had the chance." The blue eyes were like mirrors, giving nothing away.

"That's not what I do." The contorted expression of the kidnapper falling away from him flashed briefly into his mind.

"So what were you going to do? Exactly?" Crane was stroking the cold steel of the gun over the planes of his swollen cheek, wincing a little as it grazed the burns seared into his face.

Bruce paused, watching Crane's relaxed expression warily. "I don't know." he admitted and saying it out loud was a weight lifted from his back that he hadn't even known he'd been carrying.

The doctor stared at him for a second, the muzzle of the gun wavering between Bruce's head and the roof of the cave. Then he laughed, a quick dry laugh like a feather bursting into flames. "Here." He span the gun deftly round in his slender hand, pointed the handle towards Bruce. "Take it. I'm not much of a gunfighter myself."

Bruce reached out to the handle of the gun, too quickly, he thought, far too quickly to avoid any trap Crane might have laid for him. His hand closed over the butt and briefly the gun wavered between them. Then Crane shrugged and let the barrel go. He gestured towards the waterfall. "Shall we?"

Bruce kept the gun level and steady, the muzzle aimed at Crane's chest. The psychiatrist sighed, dark eyebrows creeping up in a flush of exasperation. "Must we go through this ridiculous charade every time one of us picks up a weapon?"

He stepped out from behind the bench, his hands held loosely in front of his body, the bandage clearly visible. Bruce tightened his grip on the gun, eyes never leaving Crane's scarred face, holding his ground as the psychiatrist moved slowly forward.

"Don't tell me you haven't wanted this." Crane's voice was soft, hypnotic and understanding. "To blow it all to hell." He kept coming towards Bruce, blue eyes locked on the trigger, keeping moving until his chest bumped gently against the cold muzzle of the gun. So close it was impossible to look away from the cuts and bruises that marked the pale skin. His hair smelled very slightly of damp and antiseptic.

"So do it. What are you afraid of?" Crane's voice shivered away into silence. The end of the gun was embedded deep in his ribcage, pulling the fabric down into a soft spiral over his heart. Bruce couldn't tell if the vibrations nudging along the metal down to his hand were from his pulse or Crane's. And at that moment the doctor's face was as close to peaceful as Bruce had ever seen it.

He could end all this in a second. He had been working so hard to prove to himself that he could just walk away from everything, from the city he had loved and saved, from the people who mattered to him. But, and obscurely it didn't cause him that much pain to admit it, he knew that Crane was right. No one could run _that_ fast. Or that far.

And even though he still ached with the hatred Crane caused him to feel, the hate he struggled to control, that hate was now mingled with a grudging respect. Crane had called his bluff more times than he cared to remember, times when he had thought he was holding all the cards. The psychiatrist kept his cards so close to his chest Bruce wasn't even sure Crane was playing the same game.

He wondered what the real Dr Crane had been like. How long it had been since he slipped away behind his masks and disguises. And it might brand Bruce as crazy to admit it, but he almost thought that he might have liked him.

Crane's strange eyes were looking straight back into his, defiant, daring him to pull the trigger. Bruce would have put a lead bullet in Joe Chill's chest once, and never thought twice about it. Turned out time had changed him more than he liked to think about.

"I won't kill you." And in his head he let Ducard finish the sentence for him. But I don't have to save you.

He dropped the barrel of the gun away to point at the stone floor, set the safety and tucked the weapon away in the belt of his jeans. Crane pouted at him, face falling in mock disappointment.

"Maybe next time?"

"Get your things." He span sharply round on his heel, away from Crane's mildly taunting smile, heading for the daylight behind the waterfall. Maybe he could clean up all his loose ends in one go, leave a clean slate behind him. And if not at least he had the chance to die trying. It wasn't much, but it would have to be enough.

The light of the afternoon was gentle and warm on his face, the water falling ceaselessly into the pool in a sparkling torrent under the trees. High above him a single bird sang out into the cloudless sky and when he set out up the path to the house he didn't need to look over his shoulder to know that Crane was just behind him.

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Well, that was the hardest chapter so far. I've been fiddling with this for a long time. Please let me know if I got it right!

Once again, hopefully more soon.


	19. A little nap while the road is straight

The promised installment. Thanks once again for the reads and reviews - it's nice to get some feedback. I worried about the last chapter, and then this one virtually wrote itself. So do let me know if it's okay . . .

I don't own them.

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The sun was still high in the sky, burning down in slanting beams through the tall trees, casting glittering shadows on the path. He hadn't realised how late it was. Bruce walked a little faster, the pain that was banding his chest tugging at his lungs. But if the pace was hurting him then sure as hell it was hurting Crane, and that was reason enough not to slow down any.

"Are we walking to Gotham?" The psychiatrist was a lot closer to his shoulder than Bruce had expected he would be. The warm light took some of the eerie edge out of Crane's voice, but the bitter note of resignation was still flowing like a dark current behind the words. Bruce wondered exactly how much Crane trusted him. How much faith Crane had in his own ability to size people up.

"We'll take the car." He paused to catch his breath, turned and saw the look of enquiry on Crane's face. "Not that car." The doctor shrugged, lips pursing in a small tight gesture of discontent. He had put his glasses back on at some point during the walk up the path but even the blank lenses couldn't totally disguise the flicker of disappointment in his eyes.

But he didn't need to rationalize his decisions to Crane. They would take the staff car. Alfred's car as it had been. He knew Alfred well enough to believe that he wouldn't have left Wayne Manor with a single thing that belonged to his employer. The station wagon would be just where he had seen it last, parked discreetly out of sight behind the cottage.

He knew no-one would look at it twice once they reached Gotham. Batman might need to make an impression and Bruce Wayne certainly liked to. But neither of them was here right now and the unmarked grey car with the scuffmarks on one door would be just fine for Bruce and Dr Crane to slip quietly into the streets of the city and make their way unremarked towards the Narrows.

He stepped out onto the lawn, into the sunlight, and stopped for a second to allow Crane to catch up. The doctor's hand was back in his trouser pocket, searching around for another pill. Bruce wasn't going to ask. He had seen the lengths Crane was prepared to go to in order to hang on to whatever shards of sanity he had left. He supposed he should be grateful that this time it was just pills.

As Crane stepped up out of the trees he paused and Bruce saw his eyes widen. Across the sloping strip of lawn the battered ruins of Wayne Manor shimmered in the heat, great blackened beams emerging from the fallen stone like the twisted timbers of a wrecked ship.

"Something the matter?" He was enjoying Crane's brief discomfiture.

The doctor's expression was one of grudging surprise. "I admit, I wasn't expecting this. There have been some changes since I last saw this place. What . . . happened?"

He had let himself forget how far Crane was behind on recent events. "Birthday party." he said shortly.

"My. How the other half must live."

Bruce was amazed at how quickly the bland mask had slipped back across the pale face. Crane looked more bored than anything else. Annoyed he set off again across the lawn, wondering why exactly he had allowed himself to be talked into anything so stupidly Quixotic as this plan to save the Narrows.

He had never succeeded in getting through to Crane. Every time he thought he might have detected a small chink in the doctor's wall of self possession the door was slammed shut in his face. And now he was voluntarily accompanying him back into the heart of the Narrows, back into the clinical darkness of Arkham. He must be going crazy.

But he still noticed that when they reached the front of the cottage Crane's cheeks had become alarmingly pale. Bruce wondered when he had last eaten, whether Alfred had fed him when he cleaned him up. The last thing he wanted was for the doctor to pass out half way into Arkham.

"Get inside." His voice wasn't unkind, merely stern and Crane didn't even bother to argue, simply pushed the door open and walked into the kitchen. Bruce followed him, habit and prudence prompting him to leave one hand draped loosely over the butt of the gun in his belt. "You need some food?"

The psychiatrist was looking around the small room with obvious interest, eyes lingering for a second too long on the knife block beside the sink. Bruce tensed and Crane's shoulders dropped a fraction. He walked tiredly over to the couch and sat down slowly, lowering himself onto the cushions with what Bruce recognized, with a stab of sympathy, as the pained caution of the wounded.

And he knew that if he was in Crane's position he wouldn't ask for anything either. So he busied himself finding a loaf of bread and a couple of slightly wrinkly apples in the cupboards, never taking his attention completely away from the small figure on the brown couch. The doctor was apparently engrossed in going through the record cases on the table beside him, but Bruce knew better than to let that fool him.

"Here." He stepped over the rug and put the food down next to Crane on the side table. The doctor looked up at him, blue eyes openly scornful, mouth twisting. His hand was in his pocket again, Bruce could see the concentration creasing his forehead as he searched for the right tablet.

"Gosh. Bruce. What can I say? I'm touched by your concern, really, I am." There was no mistaking the hostility in Crane's tired voice. He found the pill he had been looking for, checked it quickly and brought his fingers up to his sneering mouth. "It almost feels like you care."

Bruce stared down at Crane's defiant unhappy face. "Suit yourself. I didn't think you should be taking that shit on an empty stomach." For a second Crane's expression remained frozen, looking up at Bruce. Then he shook his head, disbelief filling his eyes, half smiling. His bandaged hand came up and rubbed hard at his right eyebrow, than stroked away down his cheek.

"You're worried about my long term health?" The tone was still mocking, gently incredulous, but the bitterness was largely gone. Bruce saw again how the loosely fitting clothes only served to highlight Crane's delicate frame, to reinforce the slender grace of the white wrists. Blue eyes rolled under long black lashes. "Oh, as you wish . . ."

He picked up the bread and ripped a chunk off, tearing into it with a force that left Bruce in no doubt of how hungry he had been. Once again Bruce felt the reluctant stirrings of respect for Crane's self control, for the way he had made his body so subordinate to his desires. He frowned and turned away. Mouth and hands full of bread Crane rose to his feet and followed him out through the open door.

As Bruce had expected the car was still parked in its usual spot behind the cottage. The keys were hanging on the usual hook under the bumper. Gotham's tide of crime had yet to wash up onto the shores of the Wayne estate.

The car smelled slightly of pine and barley sugar. Bruce remembered the small tin boxes of sweets arriving parceled up from England when he was a child, to be stowed secretively away in the glove compartment for the rare occasions when he was allowed to escort Alfred out on a shopping trip into the city. He remembered riding shotgun, mouth full of sticky, slightly sickly candy, watching the other cars swish past them. Alfred telling him stories about the country he had imagined one day visiting, stories about London and the parks and the palaces.

Crane was stood a little way back from the car, watching Bruce curiously. "No cape?"

Bruce's mouth tightened into a hard line. "Not any more." he said, and he wondered as he did so what exactly had happened to Crane's family. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Get in."

Crane walked round the front of the car, eyes raking over the dents and the scratches. "Not how I imagined riding with the Batman."

Bruce ignored him, threw his bag onto the back seat, twisted the key in the ignition and felt pleasantly relieved when it started first time. He shut his door and tried not to think too much about the possible risks of being in such close proximity to the psychiatrist. If Crane was going to try anything then he would probably have done it already. He'd already given Bruce the gun after all, and its weight over his hip was an inexpressible comfort to him.

The doctor settled into the passenger seat, moving uneasily, trying to find a comfortable position as the car taxied slowly down the gravel drive. Bruce speculated that his kick had most likely broken one or more of the doctor's ribs and he hoped that at least some of those little pills were painkillers. He had a feeling he was going to need the doctor to be fully mobile in the not too distant future.

He bumped the car up onto the hardtop and turned out to the left, away from the freeway. Crane's bruised face turned enquiringly towards him, the light reflecting off the small strip of plaster near his mouth.

"We're taking the long way round." Even as Bruce spoke a police car appeared in the opposite lane and accelerated away in a cloud of fine white dust. He watched it speed away in his mirror and saw that Crane's eyes were following it as well. "No point attracting attention."

The doctor nodded, apparently satisfied, but Bruce could see that his pale face was a little whiter than it had been. He was still finishing the bread, and the poised elegant fingers were shaking so slightly that Bruce wasn't entirely sure whether he was imagining it or not. Experimentally he twisted the knife a little, banishing the faint sensation of guilt that was flaring behind his eyes.

"You don't want the police involved?"

Crane looked at him, and for one second Bruce saw everything he had hoped for in the half glazed blue eyes. Fear, lapping away at the margins of Crane's fragmented mind like a cold river rising. But it wasn't him that Crane was afraid of. And it didn't feel like any kind of victory.

The psychiatrist looked back into Bruce's dark eyes without flinching. "You ever worn a straitjacket?" The tone was light, conversational. Bruce turned away to look back out at the grey road, the sunlight sparkling in the verges. He had his own problems. He didn't need this.

"You know what being helpless feels like? When they fasten the straps and twist your arms behind your back?"

Bruce kept his eyes on the road, concentrated on the driving, on the firm pressure of the pedal on the sole of his foot. The feel of the road sliding under the wheels.

"You ever lost control?" The doctor's pale scarred face burned at the edge of Bruce's vision and he struggled to ignore it. To pretend that this wasn't happening.

"Everything becomes surprisingly simple once you've finally gone over the edge." Crane's voice was flat and hollow. "But I imagine you would know that."

Bruce let a humourless smile settle on his lips. "I'm still on the edge."

"Still on the side of the angels Bruce? Do you really think so?"

"You don't?"

"Well, let me see. Since I met you I've been tied up, punched, kicked, tortured, drugged . . ."

"You set me on fire!"

A small smile floated across Crane's lips. "Yes. Yes. I did do that, didn't I?" He nodded like a man savouring a particularly pleasurable memory.

Bruce turned away from the bright face, eyes back on the road, shaking his head. Crane confused him and he wasn't afraid to admit it, to himself at least.

"I take it you have a plan?"

Bruce kept his eyes fixed forward, watching the white line flicker steadily away under the hood. He had no intention of letting Crane in on anything he didn't strictly need to know. A dog ran up out of the ditch in front of the car and he swerved around it and then watched it disappear into the cloud of grey dust hanging behind them.

"Fine." The doctor twisted awkwardly away from him against the pull of the belt and settled down into the corner of the seat, limbs neatly folded. "You get us into the Narrows and I'll get us into Arkham." He gave a little sigh, exasperation or exhaustion, and snuggled down a little further, eyes closing. A hand slipped up from his side and carefully removed and folded the glasses, pushing them away up to the top of the dashboard. A few moments later the tense face started to slowly let go, the frail body slumping against the door of the car.

Bruce stole a glance across the seats at the doctor's impossibly vulnerable face, relaxed and unnaturally still. He wondered again how much Crane really trusted him or if he just had nothing left to lose, if he was always this reckless with his life. And everything he had seen of Crane so far pushed him towards the possibility that the answer might somehow be both.

After all, Bruce was the good guy. He was meant to be playing by the rules, which presumably included not taking unfair advantage of sleeping psychopaths. Or at least not the ones who still had something he needed.

As he watched Crane's bruised lips moved a little and the thin shoulders drew a shade closer together, shivering even in the heat of the afternoon. Bruce sighed and turned his head forcefully away.

Ahead of him the road forked, one way leading off towards the horizon, another going right, vanishing into the distant haze. He span the wheel round in his hands and headed the car onto the long road leading towards Gotham.

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Let me know what you think . . . hope things are still meeting with approval. Thanks for reading this far!


	20. When the socket's not a shock enough

The story continues . . .

Thanks for reviewing/reading. Hopefully the updating is going to be more regular for the next wee while . . . cheers for sticking with it.

In which we go to some dark places . . .

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The city was still quieter than usual. The events of the past week had rocked even Gotham. He could feel it in the air blowing over the river from the Narrows, police helicopters circling overhead like angry wasps.

The bridges would all still be up, the rest of the city cut off by the swirl of the oily water from its dark and disturbed heart. The old city, as some people still called it. But the road across the river wasn't the only way into the Narrows. Or the only way out.

When this is over, he thought, easing his foot gently off the gas, I'll take the car. Fill her up and just keep driving, heading South. Drive right down to Mexico, slide quietly through the border for the coast. Slip off my shoes and walk out into the surf.

He could hear the waves crashing endlessly onto the crumbling shore, the high free cry of the gulls over the ocean. The sound of everything coming to a halt. It was surprisingly beautiful.

Out behind the glass, in the real world, the grey buildings of Gotham's industrial district flickered past the windows in an irregular rhythm of light and shade. Beside him, a gentle reminder of how things really stood, Crane moved restlessly in his sleep, his head bumping against the panels of the door.

As Bruce glanced over to the passenger seat he caught a brief uncomfortable glimpse of his own brown eyes sliding across the mirror on the windshield. It's just me and you now, buddy, he thought. Everybody else gone at last.

He looked down at the psychiatrist's small awkwardly folded body, twisted away from him, the pale face oddly pure in the sunlight. Beneath the fall of Crane's hair he could just see the red angry twist of the burn across his cheekbone. Isolation was a dangerous thing. And he wondered when Dr Crane had first realised he was alone.

For a second he imagined Crane standing in the sea, watching the dizzying sparkle of the Mexican sun on the waves.

Then he swung the car down off the road into the small parking lot beside the river, rolling below the giant yellow 'M' sign above the gateway. As he had hoped the lot was deserted. The entrance to the subway station was fluttering with red and white crime scene tape but there was no guard outside the open door.

When his father had the skytrains built the subway had become almost obsolete. A few people still used it but mostly the trains ran empty until they reached the suburbs. The central underground network had become synonymous with violence and drugs and all the things that Gotham's citizens preferred to keep out of sight below the pavements.

Today there would be no trains. He imagined Gordon had been swift to cut off the services in and out of the island, although he had no doubt that there were still trains trapped on that section of line. Once Crane's toxin had been released it was only a matter of time until it would filter down into the dark tunnels beneath the streets. If those already driven mad by their fear hadn't got there first. He shivered at the thought.

The lot was empty apart from the stripped out shell of a derelict Ford rotting away in one corner. He parked the car beside it, and with a gentle rattle the engine cut out and died away.

There were tall clumps of ragged weeds growing up through the cracks in the concrete, nature slowly reclaiming the land Gotham had so greedily consumed. Far away in another part of the city a freight train whistled, the melancholy sound fading into the background noise of the traffic.

Across the water the Narrows brooded like a wounded animal, small columns of smoke drifting up from between the tenements. Cooking fires, he supposed, and the after effects of the criminally insane rampaging through the quarter. Even at that distance he could smell the charred wood, and something else, something like burning hair, thick and heavy on the breeze. It seemed that somehow he was never far from the scent of burning these days.

Crane was still slumped over against the door, all aberrant angles and long dark hair falling softly against the grey wool covering his chest. He looked peaceful and Bruce regretted the necessity of waking him up. He preferred Crane this way, a blank canvas for his own dreams. But it was time to get moving. Bruce reached out and gently touched his hand to the folded shoulder.

In a brittle flash of movement the small body flexed instantly away from him, pressed up hard against the door and then went rigid under his hand. Instantly it seemed as if there was far far less air in the car than there had been. Bruce didn't move a muscle, didn't alter the pressure of his hand by as much as a fraction. His heart was suddenly in his mouth, little electric danger signals flying up his spine.

"Crane?"

"Bruce?" It was almost a whisper. The doctor's tense frame relaxed and slackened beneath his hand, moving with scattered dignity into a more upright position. "I thought . . ." He stopped, visibly controlling himself. Bruce pulled his hand away. "I thought you were someone else." The voice was flat again, any trace of something below the surface wiped smoothly away. Another door slammed shut in Bruce's face. What else had he expected?

He watched as Crane stretched unselfconsciously against the backrest of his chair, his white throat arching back, exposed, sleepy eyes half closed. Bruce wondered how much of the doctor's nonchalance was for show, whether he would ever find out what went on behind those cold blue eyes. If he would ever understand.

And there was one thing that had been gnawing at his mind almost continuously, a constant buzz of static in the background. A question mark. And the sound of a bone breaking.

Experimentally he braced the little finger of his left hand against the door, keeping it concealed from Crane with his body. He gave a light push down against the metal and felt the pain he had anticipated go shooting across his wrist and up his arm. His stomach lurched. He bit down into his lip and pushed again, just hard enough to feel the bones grate beneath the skin.

There was a soft purposeful rustle of clothing on the seat next to him.

"Don't fight it." The doctor was perfectly still, eyes on Bruce's face, a strange expression shaping his mouth, curving his lower lip into a half smile. At the corner of his mouth an old wound cracked and bled. "Embrace the pain. When you truly understand it there will be nothing more to fear." His voice was low and breathy, eyes shining with an inner light.

For a second Bruce was ashamed. Then he yielded to the hypnotic pull of the words, pathetically grateful that Crane's bruised face held no sign of judgement. He couldn't understand . . .

He let the pain trickle lazily through his head, felt the simplicity of the hurt scouring at his confused thoughts, washing away everything. Batman, Gordon, Ducard, his parents, Rachel, all briefly lit by the fire and then burned away to ashes. On the horizon of his mind the sun flared briefly over a silver sea. All he could feel was the anguished screaming of the nerves in his hand, pleading with him to make it stop. He pushed down again, jolting a little at the fresh stab of agony slicing through his left side.

Crane smiled, face lit by the sun falling through the windshield. His voice was soothing, smoothing a path through the jagged peaks of suffering. "Did you know that the thing most people are really afraid of is physical pain? Accept it Bruce. Control your own fear."

Bruce suddenly saw the black and white image of Crane's bloodied face, beaten but unbowed, snapping back from the impact of his own gloved fist, defiant. And the pain was all around him but he could bear it. He knew that the final break would hurt but it meant nothing. He could endure worse than this. Finally he began to understand how Crane could have made that push with such clear sighted finality.

With nothing to stop it the tide of pain crept forward through his mind, washing up against the rockbed of a different memory. An empty room, wardrobe doors swung open. The clean smell of vacancy and a photograph, the face turned away. Alfred. What else could possibly matter more than that? Because Alfred was out there somewhere, alone, and, Bruce knew witha certainty that cut into his chest like a knife, believing he had failed the boy he had brought up as his own.

And the hurt and the emptiness that slammed up against him made the pain in his hand a meaningless ghost. He pulled it away from the door as if it had been burned.

Crane's blue eyes met his with open contempt. "Still afraid?"

"There are worse things." Bruce's voice was deliberately rough. He could feel enough pain to be angry, angry at himself for slipping towards Crane's level. Crane was the fly in his ointment. Without the psychiatrist's unsettling presence he might still have been balancing on the edge of his precipice, Batman and Bruce Wayne, Prince of Gotham and its Dark Knight. He wondered, not for the first time, why he had gone back for Crane.

"Such as?" The contempt was dwindling back into an idle tone of disrespect, the moment passing by before Bruce could take advantage.

"Not all pain is physical." Bruce reached to the ignition for the keys and pocketed them, avoiding the use of his left hand. There were more important things they had to do before the day was done. Deliberately he kept his voice as level as Crane's had ever been. "A psychiatrist should know that."

Far away in the icy grey clouds of the mountains Ducard's words slipped like the sweetest venom into his ears, tugging at the knot of hurt he had held so close. Reminding him of the way the days could slip past, the grief fading with the old happinesses, until the memory of your loved one is just . . . poison in your veins.

And Crane's sick smile made his stomach turn. "Senseless." Every word was weighted with a bitter undertow. "Senseless, the day I vowed revenge not to have torn out my heart."

"Dumas?" Bruce was half surprised.

Crane gave a tiny nod of assent.

"Is that what you did?"

The psychiatrist looked away out of the windshield, eyes tracing the mock Doric front of the subway station, lips pressed hard together. Bruce paused, waiting. The strange fascination that Crane seemed to have for him was still strong despite it all. He had never been this close.

Then the doctor reached out and picked his glasses up from the dashboard. He gave them a little polish, mopping at the lenses with the long cuff of his shirt sleeve and settled them back on his face, covering the bruised skin, the bottomless blue of his eyes. When he slowly swivelled back around all the expression had been wiped away as if it had never been.

"Long ago Bruce. Long ago." He turned away and opened his door, stepping out a little stiffly into the sunlight, looking out away over the river towards the distant roofs of Arkham.

And after a second Bruce followed him.

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The quote Crane uses is from 'The Count of Monte Cristo.'.

Hope you enjoyed - all feedback welcome!


	21. Good and evil matched perfect

Another update? Already? Hey. I've got unexpected time on my hands. And it's a long one . . .

Thanks for reading.

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The doors of the underground station were flung wide, police tape running in zigzag diagonal bands across the opening. In the cavernous lobby at the top of the escalators nothing moved. There was enough dirty glass at the front of the building to allow the sun to light up the windows of the desks on the side wall, and the brightness made the deep well of black into which the corridor descended all the more unwelcoming.

In the middle distance, away behind the dirty grey warehouses on the other side of the road, a siren wailed into life, cutting briefly through the warm air and dying into silence. Crane looked over his shoulder, the sun flashing in the lenses of his glasses. Bruce ran a hand lightly over the grip of the gun in his belt. Then he reached out and pulled the tape up to form an arch. The doctor was industriously searching in his pocket for another pill, fringe hanging down over his eyes.

"After you." Bruce's heart was beating a little faster. He had missed this. In all his dreams of a life elsewhere he had acknowledged that he would never feel this way again. It was the price he would have to pay. He remembered his cellmates telling him about their experiences with opium, how, once you surrendered to the drug, even after you were cured of your addiction nothing ever felt that _good_ again. A flat world. Empty.

Crane ducked gracefully under the barrier, fluidly spinning around to hold the tape up for Bruce to step through the doorway. The sun had warmed the air of the building until it was almost uncomfortably hot, only the air nearest the door holding the murmur of the breeze.

To all appearances the building was utterly abandoned. Bruce walked slowly across the echoing tiles toward the slope of the escalators, every muscle of his body prepared for the future. He could feel the adrenalin pulling at his spine, liquidizing his chest.

A waft of cooler damper air rose up from the darkness far below, mixed with the smells of diesel fuel and bleach and decay. It blew into his face, moving through his hair with cold shivery fingers. Down in the black a dim sputter of blue neon flickered and burned.

"Stay behind me." He didn't turn round to see if Crane was paying attention. If Crane really wanted in to the Narrows then he was going to have to play by Bruce's rules for a change. Not that Bruce was particularly enchanted by the idea of the doctor following him down those steep steps into the unknown. Again his hand came back to the comforting bulge of the gun.

He hated escalators. Always had done, hated the clank and rattle, the mechanisms grinding away below the metal sheets. Irrationally he shuddered at the thought of the stairway lurching into life as they descended, a last flutter of life from the dead circuits. Sucking them down into the pit.

His boots clanked against the steel, one hand guiding him down the slope of the rail, away from the light. He closed his eyes, counted down from five, opened them again and was relieved to see that his night vision at least was still as good as ever. The silver surfaces gleamed dully on either side of the flight of stairs, reflecting those last rays of sun that had journeyed this far below ground.

On the stair behind him he could hear Crane sliding one hand carefully along the banister, measuring his steps down into the unknown. Mark my footsteps, my good page, tread thou in them boldly. The memory of the words surfaced unsummoned, the corners of his mouth twisting up almost against his will. He didn't think Crane would appreciate the parallel nearly so much.

At the bottom a long corridor led off into the distance, a few dimly bulbed emergency lights casting a dull gleam on the tiled walls. The light fell down into dark pools of shadow, blending into the dirt and grime that had coated every surface, clinging like grated cheese to the tiles.

The silent corridor smelled of piss and stale cigarettes. Discarded papers and food wrappings lay strewn across the floor. Bruce could imagine the panic there had been on the day when the toxin had been released, the last train to make it out of the Narrows pulling away from the platform of Arkham Underground with the first wafts of distilled fear floating in on the air conditioning.

Crane was by his side, pupils huge behind the glasses as he struggled to make out what lay ahead in the low light levels. Bruce felt a stab of irritation, irritation he knew was childish and pointless, that the doctor had made no mention of his choice of route. He supposed that Crane had thought it all out days ago. Being locked up gave a man time to think. More vacant time than he might necessarily want.

He couldn't help but notice that the doctor's face was starting to heal a little, the swellings around the eyes beginning to go down, the darkness of the bruising fading from blue to yellow. At some point Crane had removed the plaster from the cut on his jaw and the line lay marked across his white skin like a piece of red thread.

Once again Bruce felt the horrible sensation of something spinning out of kilter and coming clatteringly loose in his chest. He believed now, more than he ever had done before, that something truly terrible must have happened in Crane's past. Something bad enough to push the doctor towards the edge, the edge from which he had finally jumped into the shadows.

He didn't need to imagine the straitjacket. He already knew only too well what losing control felt like. Ducard had taught him well. But it wasn't always possible to contain everything that he was feeling . . .

Crane was looking at him searchingly, more curiosity than he normally permitted to show sparkling in his eyes. "Penny for your thoughts?"

The doctor was a shadowy figure in the darkness, cheekbones casting long smudges of darkness down the hollow cheeks. Bruce remembered the look of detachment on Crane's tired face as he had stroked the blue steel barrel of the gun gently along those bones.

"What are _you_ afraid of?" he said, and he listened to the tug of the words as they disappeared into the black, tiny puffs of air dissolving. Empty rhetoric. Vanishing into the stillness.

A measured smile parted the swollen lips, the eerie accommodating smile that Bruce was starting to dread. It was the kind of smile that might once have transformed Crane's face, made him look human. Now it only served to highlight the taint of madness that gleamed behind those cold blue eyes.

"Everything." Crane's voice was a muted whisper, sad and low. "Nothing."

The lights high in the ceiling over their heads guttered and flashed, the occasional crackle of electricity breaking the silence with a crunch of static. Crane held Bruce's gaze levelly, chin slightly raised. The defiance was back, the old defenses thrown up against him.

Before long Crane would be gone. And Bruce would never have a chance to understand anything. When the warm creamy surf of the South finally curled around his feet he would stare out over the ocean, into the distant line of the horizon vanishing into the sun. And he would wonder exactly who Crane had been.

He turned away and walked cautiously away down the poorly lit hallway, footsteps echoing off the tiles all around him. He had never appreciated until now exactly how unsettling an empty station had the potential to be. A space intended to be filled with the crush and push of jostling bodies, the mechanoid voices of the public address system. But then, this station hadn't been like that for years. Since the time when his father had been alive.

The platform was as empty as the corridor, only a few pieces of garbage blowing across the greasy tracks in the cold draft that sucked through the passageways. The air was thick with diesel fumes, catching at his chest, forcing him to regulate his breathing. Crane was walking away from him towards the mouth of the tunnel, his feet scuffing on the concrete, hair hanging down over his face. His hands were in his pockets again.

Bruce began to think that the sooner they got into Arkham the better. He wasn't sure how many more pills Crane was going to need to maintain this level of functioning but he was certain that the doctor's supplies must be beginning to run low. He'd seen the madness already. And even under the influence of the drugs Crane was still very far from sane.

He lowered himself down from the edge of the platform to drop onto the tracks, boots squelching into something far less pleasant than simple mud or dirt. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a sudden scuttling movement beside his foot and twisted sharply away, breath caught in his mouth. Just a rat, he told himself. Just a rat.

Further along the line ahead of him he could dimly make out Crane sliding down from the platform edge onto the rails. In the furthest reaches of the tunnel the blackness was almost complete. He wished he'd thought to pack one of the torches from the Batcave in his bag. It wasn't like him to set out without making some sort of preparation.

Crane was stood at the mouth of the tunnel, waiting. Even in the gloom he could see that the doctor seemed a little more agitated than usual, almost . . . excited.

"Next stop Arkham" he said shortly. He was starting to long for the time when this was all done with. Finished.

There was no hesitation. Crane followed him into the darkness without a word.

The oily lines either side of them hissed and whispered under the weight of a distant train, moving somewhere out on the network. Bruce prayed that nothing would come down the track towards them, catching them like rats in a trap. There was no room either side of the steel rails for even Crane to flatten his frail body away from the rush of an oncoming train.

Less than half a mile between them and the next set of station lights and already it felt like an eternity to walk. The loneliness of the dark tunnel settled on him like a cold damp cloak, filling his head with whispering voices.

He quickened his pace a little, the darkness light enough for his practiced eyes. Behind him he heard Crane stumble clumsily into a pool of foul water, struggling to keep up in the blackness. Mean spiritedly he sped up just a little more, relishing his position in control. He was the one driving now and the kick of the power sent tiny spurts of adrenalin through his body. A passing feeling. Transitory.

In the gloom of the tunnel walls, blurring out beside him, he saw the shadowy form of a gloved fist, slamming into a pale white cheek, and he looked down, uncomfortable with himself. There wasn't all that much separating him from Crane right now. Only his compassion, whatever there was left of that. Once upon a time he had told Ducard as much.

He stopped and waited impatiently for the doctor to catch him up. The blackness was almost total now, the least glow from the station behind them still allowing him to see a little. From all he could remember this bit of track was fairly straight and he only hoped that the next set of lights would appear before these ones were completely gone.

Crane's voice cut like a razor into his thoughts, scattering them out into the damp atmosphere of the tunnel.

"Why do you do it, Bruce?"

It was impossible for him to see Crane's face but he could guess what it looked like. The intensity, the dark pleasure masked behind the smile. But there was something else in the voice now, a breathless edge to the words.

"Do what?"

"The mask, the cape, the . . . _altruism_." The last word was almost spat out. Crane's voice had dropped back to that unnatural bitter shiver Bruce had heard from behind the storeroom door. "The Bat Man."

"Revenge." The answer was on his lips before he could stop it. Before he could decide if that was even true anymore.

"Everyone loses their parents Bruce." Taunting, light words falling into his ear like acid.

"How about you? _Scarecrow_." And he said it like he meant it to hurt.

"Oh, I made my decision years ago." Crane's voice was still light. Offhand. As if nothing was really that important. "Be afraid or be feared."

Yeah, Bruce thought. Me too. And he sped up just enough to leave Crane a few paces further behind him.

It was a few minutes later that he realised that the source of the light had switched from behind them to somewhere up ahead. A few more steps before the glow began to crystallize into the D shape of a platform.

Instinctively he slowed his pace, eyes straining against the dark to make out any details. He felt Crane slow his pace to match and wondered if the doctor too was struggling to see what lay before them. How much trust he had invested in Bruce's ability to get them through this in safety. None at all, most likely, he thought with a half irritated flash of temper.

And in the flickering glare of the platform lights something moved.

Crane was already up by his shoulder, eyes shining in the darkness. Bruce extended his free hand very slowly across the tunnel, blocking the psychiatrist's movement forwards. He wouldn't make the mistake of putting his hand on Crane a second time. "We've got company."

He heard Crane's small intake of breath, the near silent footsteps slowing to drop a little behind him.

"So this is it." The weird note of excitement Bruce had heard before filled Crane's voice, a little higher than usual. He's enjoying this, Bruce realised, and against his will he smiled at the doctor's hidden strength. It seemed like they both drew power from the darkness.

"Afraid?" He had to ask.

"No." The smile was audible in the voice now.

"Even of dying?"

"Oblivion?" A cold laugh accompanied the word. "Life could never be so sweet."

Bruce's lips met in a thin line. If he died here in the dark then everything would be accomplished. Alfred would know he had tried. Gordon would forget the masked vigilante who had once tried to make the city they both loved into something more than a rotting hulk of corruption. Gotham would go on beyond them all, a tall ship heading on out into a never-ending silver sea. Life could never be so sweet . . .

He turned to look at Crane in the half light. Very deliberately the doctor reached up and removed his glasses. "Show me how it's done."

Then Bruce was slipping away through the darkness to the platform edge, senses alert, the adrenalin coursing through him like a drug hitting his veins. With one hand he pulled himself up far enough to see over the lip of the raised area, the other hand holding the gun.

Two men were grappling with each other against the platform wall, their breath coming in hard gasps. One of them was whimpering a little, even as he fought his eyes nervously scanning the area for further sources of terror. Bruce remembered the time he had spent under the toxin, the ceaseless rush of fear turning his muscles to water.

He pointed the gun in the air and pulled the trigger. The explosion in the confined space of the tunnel sounded like a demolition bomb.

The two men fell instantly apart, cowering back away from the source of the sound. Both dirty, both half starved looking. Bruce pulled himself slowly up over the edge of the platform and advanced, waving both arms, making himself look as big as possible, shouting. For a second they stared at him, eyes dilated, terror imprinted onto their faces. Then they turned and ran, wildly, colliding with the walls, tearing at each other in their rush to escape.

Hesmiled. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

"Impressive." Crane's voice was as dry as dust. "Will that work with the others?"

Others? Bruce turned to the other end of the platform. Saw with horror the crowd of wide eyed, fear ravaged faces watching him warily. Shifting on their feet like a herd of cattle trapped in an abattoir pen. And he realised that he was between them and the door.

One woman, her clothes torn and tattered, standing a little apart from the edge of the mob, face working lopsidedly, began to scream. It was a high wordless scream, the scream of a terrified child. And the crowd began to move like one body, surging along the platform towards him. He watched horrified as the screaming woman disappeared beneath the trampling feet.

Desperately Bruce dived for the platform edge, every inch of his skin crawling with revulsion. These weren't people anymore, they were zombies. Irredeemably lost. How much impact was an antidote going to make?

Below him in the well of the track he could see Crane running one hand slowly, wonderingly over his hair, eyes fixed on the mob. His face was glowing. He looked, Bruce thought sickly, like a man who had looked into the face of God.

Then he hit the rails with a dull thud and crouched, making himself as small as possible, waiting for the noises on the platform to die away into the distance.

When it was all over he pulled himself upright. Crane was still standing between the lines, transfixed.

"Crane." he snapped. There weren't enough words to say what he wanted to the doctor. The Narrows had been like this for three days now. What other horrors were out there in the streets? Nothing could ever justify this. The contagion of Crane's madness must have truly infected him if he had ever believed that the doctor could be excused for anything he had done. Finally he could see clearly.

As soon as this was over he would make sure that Gordon knew exactly where to find Arkham's former director. Two could play at deceit as well as one.

"Crane." He walked briskly up to the doctor and shook him. Any fear about Crane's response had vanished along with his compassion. He would shoot him now like a mad dog if he had to.

Crane's blue eyes jolted back into focus. "Yes?" His voice was dreamy. Bruce looked at him with disgust.

"Let's get going." He turned away abruptly, walked back to the edge of the pit and pulled himself up onto the platform. Turned and with a reluctance bordering on revulsion stretched his hand down and dragged Crane up from the tracks. The doctor's lips moved in an involuntary whimper at the pressure on his broken ribs, his wounded body collapsing in a crumpled heap at Bruce's feet. Bruce looked away, uncaring.

The body of the woman who had screamed lay broken at the far end of the platform, an obscene trampled shapeless mass. I'm sorry, Bruce thought. Crane's mocking words were haunting him. You seem to have left the job of saving the city half finished. It echoed through his head like the fading sound of a gun being fired.

He turnedback to see thedoctor on his feet, eyes still unnaturally bright, face still touched with the bright glow of delight. He was almost quivering now, driven by the force of some emotion Bruce didn't even want to imagine. The fragile face held no alluring secrets for him now. He finally had seen what Crane was capable of, seen through the masks the doctor had so skillfully shown him. It hurt his pride that he had let himself be fooled for so long.

"Door. Now." Crane moved across the platform as if in a daze, giving no sign that he had noticed the change in Bruce's manner. The long sleeves had fallen down over his hands, a frayed end of the bandage that wrapped his broken finger poking out from the once white cuff.

Bruce was still holding the gun tightly in his clenched fist. His trigger finger burned with desire. Once they were finally in Arkham, finally at the source of the antidote, he would know what to do. Even Dr Crane couldn't get far with a bullet in each knee. There were stronger prisons in Gotham than the asylum had ever been. Death would be too easy.

He reached the doorway a few steps ahead of the doctor, mind racing ahead, racing to a future where Crane was gone and his own freedom was secured. A strange shadow fell forward onto the platform from the bright lights of the hallway and he paused. Saw in the corridor behind the doorway a single huge figure stood like a colossus blocking his way. And he recognized only too well the tattered orange canvas of the Arkham high security wing.

When he looked over his shoulder he was completely unsurprised to realise that Crane was nowhere to be seen. He had expected nothing less.

Slowly he stepped backwards, tempting the man away from the door, away from the narrow corridor where the advantage would be all one sided. To his relief the man followed. The same fear as Bruce had seen on the other faces was seared into the heavy eyes, but he guessed this one was an example of the fight response. He'd been lucky so far. Now it looked like his luck had run out.

The man hit him with surprising efficiency for someone in such a condition. Bruce lashed out wildly at the grinning face, suddenly struck by how different fighting was without the Batsuit. By how quickly he had become dependant on his little toys. Behind him there was only the blank wall at the far end of the platform. Or the tunnel oninto the Narrows. There was no hope of escape there.

A second later the gun was knocked out of his hand. His attacker had strength and weight on his side and Bruce had only his speed and the advantage of a sound mind. But the pain in his chest was like steel wire wrapping his lungs. He hadn't realised how weak he had become. All the damage his body had endured was finally taking its toll. Then the man was on top of him, sweaty and rank and desparate, the whites of his eyes flashing terror.

Bruce struggled against him with all the strength he had left. The hands wrapping unmercifully around his neck were hot and damp, the man's stale breath seeping horribly across his face in a fetid stream. The lights inBruce's head span and crashed down into the red cloud of pain like a ferris wheel exploding, his tortured lungs grinding against the broken bands of his ribcage.

He could feel the strength draining away from his arms, feel his will to fight weakening. It would be so easy to surrender to the darkness, to slide away from the pain and the dirt, to take that small step into nothing. Once he would have fought his death. It had taken thirty years for him to realize that he didn't actually want to anymore. Crane was right. Oblivion would be enough.

His body was struggling without him now, only the animal force in his muscles still straining for survival, for a single gasp of sweet air. Without emotion he watched it happen, gazing out from a place that was becoming further and further away. The crazed, fixed face of his attacker filled his rapidly darkening vision, filled his world. He stared into the maddened eyes and he could almost bring himself to feel pity. And he almost hoped that Doctor Crane would make it. To the victor the spoils.

And with a quick flicker of partial understanding the face hanging in front of him changed. The wet mouth hung temporarily open, panting out a pained little grunt of surprise. The wild eyes rolled slowly back in the head and the man lurched away from him, the choking fingers reluctantly releasing Bruce's burning throat from their grip. Then the heavy body slid slowly down his heaving chest and dropped like a dead weight to the floor.

A second later Bruce followed, crashing clumsily to his knees, retching uncontrollably. Between the deep tearing breaths that were racking his agonized chest he looked apprehensively up into the previously empty space above him.

Crane smiled encouragingly. In his unbandaged hand he was holding a slim chisel, the blade slick and wet with blood.

"Crude. But effective."

On the tiled wall behind the doctor's dark figure a single neon tube blinked on and off, illuminating the black and white platform sign. Arkham Underground.

Barely comprehending, head swimming with sickness, Bruce stared at the wooden handle of his father's chisel, hanging so loosely from Crane's blood stained fingers. Then the oblivion he had craved came down roughly over his head like a canvas sack and he fell away into the dark.

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All reviews much appreciated, positive or otherwise. Thanks. Hopefully more soon . . .


	22. Follow the path of no resistance

Well, I did say that updates might not be consistent ;-).

Thanks for all the reads and the reviews.

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The darkness flickered and bent into strange shapes. Bruce struggled to keep a hold of something tangible, anything that might help him to remember what had been so important. Everything . . . flowed, and the sound of it sweeping past him was like the clattering rush of an oncoming train.

He'd thought that death would be peaceful, but it turned out that was just another of the things he had been wrong about. Once upon a different time he had imagined that he might find his parents, waiting in the final silence beyond the pain. Now he realised that he didn't know what he would say to them.

When he had eventually stopped trying he had thought that everything would become simple. But sometimes trying really was the only way to make things make any sense at all. Everything happens for a reason, he thought, and it seemed such a pity he'd had to lose it all just to find out something that stupidly obvious.

The darkness swirled around him like a black cape, brushing whispers of smooth silk over his face and he couldn't fight it. Couldn't escape the things it murmured into his ears, couldn't pull away from all the needs and the wishes and the wants. Because now it was all around him, and, somehow, he was the one who was generating all of it.

He peered hopelessly into the restless gloom that covered him, struggling to see an end to the black clouds, to find a way out. To find the answer to a question he'd never wanted to have to ask. A smear of grey painted a dull wash of brightness over the horizon and he noticed with the smallest start of surprise that his eyes were still tightly shut.

And the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a station. Crane was sitting perfectly still beside him, his face turned away to the far end of the platform. There was a rapidly cooling dead body slumped heavily beside them. It all made perfect sense. Even though really there was no sense at all.

He wasn't surprised to see the gun resting in Crane's lap, the loose fingers of one slim hand absently stroking the barrel as if it was a sleeping cat. Even the sick tug of unconsciousness couldn't erase his certain knowledge that if there was an advantage to be found the doctor would make the most of it.

The inside of his mouth was painfully dry, his throat throbbing dully. His eyes felt as if they had been recently soldered shut. He let them close again and lay still in his darkness, trying not to imagine the future. There weren't going to be any silver sun drenched Mexican oceans waiting out there. Only loss and madness and whatever it was that Dr Crane's world was made of. He'd caught glimpses here and there.

Something stabbed at his arm, a sharp point of hurt like a horsefly biting down into the skin and he tensed away from the pain and what it might mean. Just a little pinprick . . . His eyes sprang open, staring up into Crane's mildly concerned face.

"Relax." Crane's voice was just the wrong side of bored. Between disinterested and nervous. "This won't hurt you."

He flicked the syringe expertly away from Bruce's arm and stuck the cap back over the needle. "It's a muscle relaxant and a painkiller. It'll help with the bruising."

Bruce wondered exactly what else Crane had tucked away in his pockets. And, more pertinently, exactly what the doctor had in mind.

All the reactions that he had so carefully trained over the years were screaming at him to run. To get as far away from Crane, from Arkham, as far from the Narrows as he could. But his body was letting him down. Death does not wait for you to be ready, he thought, and the drug slipped easily through his veins like a flood of warm milk. Ducard would have been outraged.

The psychiatrist looked down at him with a detached scientific curiosity, hooded eyes half veiled behind the glass of the thin lenses. Under the cold stare Bruce twisted like a bug on a pin, uncomfortable and unhappy.

"Aren't you going to thank me?" Crane's voice was entirely devoid of irony. Of anything really. It sounded as if it had been scraped clean. "I believe I may just have saved your life."

"I don't owe you anything." Bruce's throat struggled with the words, with the effort of breathing and speaking simultaneously. His voice was a dry whisper. He could feel Crane's drugs slowly rising up his spine, a blessed sensation of stillness sweeping over his aching bones.

The psychiatrist's lips parted in a bare cold scowl, fingers running restlessly over and over the gun lying on his thighs. "This isn't over yet."

Oh God. "Until the fat lady sings?"

Crane didn't smile. "I need to get into Arkham, Bruce. With you or without you. Sadly, and don't for a moment imagine that I don't resent this, I may still require your help." His voice was as patient as a mother explaining something to a particularly dull child.

Bruce closed his eyes and let his head bump gently back down against the platform. Every little scrape and graze on his body was tingling in the cold damp air, dragging him back to full consciousness. Kicking and screaming, he thought, and he wished for a second that the doctor would just put a bullet in his head and leave him there.

He imagined the cold steel of the gun pressing hard into his aching forehead, the click of the safety catch coming off. Crane's hair brushing his cheek and then . . . nothing. But he couldn't even depend on oblivion.

Beside him Crane was picking at the scuffmarks on the sole of his shoe with one delicate hand, the other still tracing the lines of the gun barrel. "We can't stay here forever. They'll come back, sooner or later." He didn't sound worried but Bruce knew better by now than to rely on surface impressions.

"You can get into Arkham?" He stared up at the damp stains on the roof, letting them run together, merge into one dark patch of rusty black. There were places he would rather be going.

Crane shifted uncomfortably, stretching one leg away along the ground and Bruce wondered how exactly long he had been out. How long Crane had been sat beside him, watching and waiting. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"I can." The doctor paused, flicked a glance down at Bruce's face. "We'll need to go outside."

"No convenient emergency exit from Arkham to the station for Professor Crane? No tunnel?"

Crane stiffened. "The rumours of this . . . tunnel have been much exaggerated. It's just an urban myth."

Bruce looked up into the scarred face, intrigued despite himself. The doctor's wary eyes didn't meet his. "Is that so?"

Crane's gaze dropped away to brush the tiled floor. "I locked the door from the other side," he admitted, voice low, and for a second his mouth twisted into something close to a self mocking smile.

Hundreds of little shocks of pain were still jolting along Bruce's throat, a pearl necklace of shining beads one by one slipping up into his brain and exploding behind his eyes. The drug curled up into the lights in his head like the grey smoke from a cigarette, gently whispering into the hurt, a sweet line of comfort.

It was true what they said, he thought, when the pain was wiped away you could hardly remember how bad it had been. He concentrated on breathing, trying to ignore the seductive demands his body was making for sleep, trying to use what was left of the hurt as a means of retaining control. It was an old game. Crane played it far better than he would ever want to.

There was an echo far down in the tangled mess of thoughts that he'd believed were already buried. An insistent buzzing pushed itself forward into the front of his head. And it was on his tongue before he could stop it. "It's not pretension."

"What?" The doctor merely sounded irritated, but below the irritation was something like confusion and Bruce saw for a single second a gap opening in the wall of indifference with which Crane pushed away the world.

"Alfred. There are reasons." It felt good to have an excuse to say his name. Even there in the crackling darkness of an abandoned subway below Arkham. He had never said thank you. It had never been expected of him. And one day he had finally pushed hard enough and now Alfred was gone.

When he had walked out all those years ago he had always expected, known, really, that Alfred would be waiting for him when he was ready to come back. But he didn't think Alfred was going to be coming back. And he didn't think there was any point in waiting for him.

"I'm sure there are." A mixture of sarcasm and the fake sincerity of a cash-per-hour psychoanalyst. "I'm sure he's been handed down through the family for generations."

He _is_ the family now, Bruce thought, and the truth of it hit him somewhere in the small of the back. "Something like that," he said, and the doctor's cynicism washed off him like water sliding down a newly waxed car hood. It didn't matter any more.

Crane's hands were wandering through his hair now, the gun still dangling down from his loosely clasped fingers. The disconnected look was starting to appear in his eyes, his concentration wavering between Bruce and something else. Something further away. In as much as the blank expression masking his face revealed anything it was unhappiness and Bruce couldn't handle the way that made him feel.

"Why do _you_ do it?" he asked, letting the words hang bare between them, the harshness of his voice matching the hunger rising in his chest for something that he didn't really remember.

"The same as you." Crane's voice was offhand, casual, but the blue eyes that looked down into his were glowing like opals, translucent and filled with tiny sparks of light. Behind him the station sign fizzled and sparked, the black letters hanging down the wall like angled shadows. "Revenge." The word was filled more disgust than Bruce knew the world held.

"I prefer justice," he said, like it was the end of the conversation, like he was supposed to, and it sounded weak and stupid even to him. It wasn't what he had said back in the tunnel. It wasn't what he had really thought at any time in the last six weeks. In the last ten years.

One dark eyebrow slipped out from behind the glasses. "Really Bruce? Because revenge is far sweeter. And far more honest." His voice tailed off into a scornful whisper. The blue eyes were distant, looking out into a world Bruce could not see. But he could imagine.

"Crane," he began. Then he stopped. He was fairly certain that the doctor was listening to something other than him. He had seen that look before.

The psychiatrist's pale face was rigid, locked into a sneer that was aimed at someone other than Bruce. When his lips finally moved the contemptuous poison coating his words made even Bruce edge a little away.

"Justice is a story for children, Bruce. There is no justice. You know that."

The hard edge of Crane's voice cracked a little and Bruce's shoulders drew together, pulling back against the hard tiled floor. How easy, he thought, to mistake desperation for defiance. Or the other way round. He wasn't sure if he would ever really know how it worked.

The psychiatrist was still staring absently into the shadows, his legs curled beneath him. The hand that gripped the gun was lightly brushed with white over the knuckles. Over the edge of the platform the rails hissed and sighed, another train running somewhere far away in the distant reaches of the new city.

"Once everything loses its shape revenge is the only thing that makes any sense." And the low bitter voice sounded hopelessly lost.

In the silence of the station a door slammed far along the corridor leading away from the platform to the daylight of the street above. The doctor looked up, the spell broken, temporarily startled, dark eyelashes flashing up from the blue eyes.

Bruce rolled away, over onto his side, uncurled, instinctively testing the strength in his legs, in his arms. Whatever it was Crane had stuck him with seemed to be working, at least as far as his body was concerned. What it might be doing to his mind was a problem for another time. It was time to move.

"Can you stand up?" Crane didn't try to hide the concern in his voice. The whispery dissociated quality was gone, replaced with the efficient calm manner of the Dr Crane Arkham and the lawcourts had known. The hand that was holding the gun moved up to his chest, the other searching his pockets for another pill.

Bruce gave a slight nod, trying to convince himself as much as Crane. With a rush of confusion that left his head spinning he fought his way up to his knees and paused, gasping painfully. Trying to conceal his weakness, although that already seemed redundant.

Beside him the cold dead body of the man who had attacked him lay staring reproachfully at the ceiling. He wondered if Crane had killed before. Certainly the methodology had been commendably scientific. A sharp blade to the base of the skull, aimed up into the soft tissue of the brain. He didn't think he could have done it nearly so neatly himself.

The doctor was on his feet already, pacing backwards and forwards along the stretch of platform that ran below the sign, lips moving impatiently. His face was lit with an excitement that made Bruce's stomach turn. He had heard Crane that night he had come to rescue Rachel and that same unhealthy excitement had been in the psychiatrist's voice then. That hadn't ended well.

He forced himself to slowly rise the extra few feet up until he was standing on his feet, swaying a little unsteadily in the half light.

Crane smiled at him, a quick taut smile. "Shall we?" He slipped his glasses into his shirt pocket, and his eyes were huge and bright. Then he turned, spinning away, movements just a little too large, like a clubber hitting the far edge of some drug induced high. "Come along."

Bruce sighed. It would have been easier to be Crane's prisoner than his accomplice. The weight of responsibility was heavier on his shoulders than he could bear. He knew only too well what would be awaiting them in the street up the stairs and he had no desire for it. No desire to see Crane transformed again, to see that horrible look of awe hanging in the soft blue eyes.

Reluctantly he followed the doctor along the corridor, trying not to breathe too hard. His head was still swimming in clouds of cotton wool like fog, his eyes burning and prickling in the dirty air of the subway.

Crane was holding the gun in front of his body, waist height, moving with a jerky edged caution.

"You know how to use that thing?"

The doctor turned towards him, let the gun spin in his hand in a way that left no doubts on that score. Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"Sam Colt made us equal." Crane's dry lipped mouth smiled sardonically, his eyes dark and strangely luminous. Then he looked at Bruce's surprised face and the smile reached up to the corners of his eyes. "Oh Bruce. What a poor creature you must think me."

Bruce shrugged, a little awkward. The shrug caught at his ribs and his breath snagged behind his teeth. "Not much of a gunfighter?" he said, and the words came out oddly raw in the diesel laden air of the passageway.

"Raised in a corn-brake." Crane's artfully caricatured drawl was dismissive. "You do what you have to do." He turned away, effectively cutting off the conversation before Bruce had a chance to reply. Before he had a chance to even think about what Crane had just said.

Ahead of them a long flight of steps stretched up into the distance, leading towards a patch of bright blue light. No escalators in the Narrows, Bruce thought with a stab of unexpected nostalgia. Only stairs.

At his side Crane gave a little twist of eagerness, fretting to be off, almost quivering. He had got so close to finding out what drove the doctor on into the darkness. And he was beginning to accept that even madness was never simple. Hell, even oblivion had turned out to be more difficult than he had expected.

He had genuinely believed he could betray Crane's trust. Even thinking of the people on the platform made him shudder with disgust, skin prickling with horror. He would have put a bullet into Crane's knee and left him on the floor of Arkham for the police to find. Batman would have done the same. If there was no justice then there was no sense. To anything.

But that chance had been taken out of his hands and Crane, broken as he was, had saved his life when he knew he would probably have stood aside and let Crane go down. He touched the finger that he had bent back earlier that day, let the pain shiver up his arm, insistent even over the numbing sway of the drugs.

And everything was suddenly mercifully simple. All his choices were gone now. There was nothing else to do except see what happened next. For a second he felt happier than he had at any time since Ducard had walked into his house on the night of his birthday.

Crane looked over at him, smiling like an excited boy, and he almost smiled back. The doctor's eyes were glowing as he turned away up the stairwell. Bruce sighed, and the pain in his chest and the pain in his head slipped away into the night like the red tail lamp of a passing freight train. With one hand resting heavily on the slick metal banister he followed the dark silhouette away up the steps into the bright light of the Narrows.

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Thanks for reading. Hope you all enjoyed, reviews very welcome. As always, hopefully more soon.


	23. You're a jaywalker, you just walk away

Another chapter – and a long one this time.

I wanted to put out what I have because there may be a delay in updates for a while now. I'm sorry, but my little horse is very sick now and for a while she's going to be getting all my time until we have a resolution of the situation. Whatever that means.

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. Your time and your support is, as always, hugely appreciated. I will be back, as someone else once said. Someone with more guns than I have. As much as possible I'll try to keep responding to reviews and such.

Once again I don't own anything that belongs to DC. Or indeed anything that belongs to anyone else. That would be theft.

Thank you again. This is not the end . . .

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The Narrows smelled of smoke and dirt and decay, much as it always had. Bruce's nostrils wrinkled in the fresher cooler air blowing into the atrium. Climbing the stairs had taken more out of him than he had expected, the ache in his chest still dragging at his lungs even over the lubrication of the drugs.

He was almost ready to throw his pride away and beg Crane for one of the pills that the doctor's pockets seemed to be an endless source of. One of the little blue and white ones ought to about do it. Maybe two.

The doctor was standing outlined beside the door, whip thin body thrown into stark relief by the light from the street and the gently clinging drape of Bruce's old sweaters. The gun was resting loosely in one white hand, dark dirty hair sweeping down over his face, hiding his eyes. A nervous tension was humming through his frame, humming loud enough that Bruce could almost hear the static, taste the ozone radiating out like dust from the taut body.

In the street outside there was no noise except the slow sighing of the wind between the buildings. From where he was standing he could only glimpse one narrow sliver of black empty tarmac, an red striped plastic bottle rolling backwards and forwards in the breeze on the pavement. Wherever the crowd from the platform had gone they weren't here now.

He moved to a position beside Crane, his head craning cautiously round the doorway to look out along the road. It seemed quiet enough. The mental map he had been constructing of their route from the station to Arkham was unfolded neatly in his head, and he traced their path in reverse back to the door.

This would have been easier on the rooftops, he thought, and for a moment he almost wished that Batman was there. But Batman would never have come this far in the first place. And he couldn't imagine Crane acquiescing to being carried. His lips twitched.

Beside him the doctor turned his head and looked up, eyes glowing with a spooky intensity. The sunlight falling through the doorway caught and shone on his hair, splashing bright patches across the floor.

Bruce wondered what Crane was thinking. If he was thinking. It was impossible to tell how deep the madness ran, how much of Crane's coldly logical brain was still operating beneath the surface.

He was in the doctor's hands now. For better or worse, whatever that meant in this context. And when he looked down into Crane's clear face he no longer really saw the madness, or the mob on the platform, or even the sick sigh of content at their fear that the psychiatrist had let him see such a short time before.

Justice had failed them both. It could so easily have been him here, ill and broken and burning up with the desire for revenge like a smouldering funeral pyre feeding on its human fuel. It very nearly was.

"Bruce." Crane's voice called him away, out of the strangely sedated fog of his thoughts, back to the station and the sunlight and the empty street. He blinked at him, half blinded by the light, running a hand through his hair, rubbing at his temples. His head still throbbed under the warm blanket of tranquilisers, but the pain was meaningless background noise. Almost comforting.

"We have to go now." The psychiatrist's hand dipped down into his trouser pocket and came up holding a tiny red pill clipped between finger and thumb. He peered at it for a few seconds, eyebrows slightly raised, frowning. Then he shrugged and slipped it into his mouth, dry swallowing with a wince.

"Those help much?" Idle curiosity, and he knew it. He just couldn't help himself.

Crane looked down at the floor, scuffed the side of his foot against the lino. "It's not an exact science." His eyes swung up to Bruce's face, eyes that were blue and blank like a summer sky. "Things . . . come and go. Sometimes I can keep them away for days." Behind him the wind whispered down the empty street, blowing scraps of paper and plastic bags up into the warm air. His pale face was different now, the sick spinning excitement mutating into something sadder. Something older.

"You know what that feels like?" Crane's gaze trapped him, snapping him away from his own thoughts, pulling him down into the gently spiraling vortex of the words. The reasonable tone. The understanding. It wasn't really a question.

And Bruce backed away, shaking his head, and the psychiatrist's insistent voice followed him as he went, nuzzling its soft way inside his mind. Rubbing against the things he kept buried so far down that no-one would ever have a chance to touch them.

"You feel dead inside. You feel like nothing you do will ever make any difference. And you go through the motions of your life like maybe it might matter to someone. But it doesn't." The voice had turned to the sweetest poison. Like Ducard in the mountains, sat beside a smoky fire, little by little twisting the story of his life into something more than was really true.

Crane's eyes met his without flinching, a question mark, and he couldn't quite contain the shudder running like black ice along the rivets of his spine. Couldn't hide the recognition he knew was flaring in his eyes.

"One morning you look into the mirror and you see that your soul has gone. And when you wake up the next day you can't even remember why you once thought it was important."

And Bruce knew that there _was_ a reason why it was important. He just couldn't find a way to articulate it.

"Fear means believing that something matters. That your life is actually worth saving. But when you no longer care about yourself, and you finally realize that nobody else does either then there's nothing left that's worth being afraid of."

The sour mixture of triumph and defeat in Crane's voice tore at something in Bruce's chest. Tore into the long vanished memory of an angry confused boy, dropping an unfired gun into the freezing black water of the docks. Watching it slip away under the still surface like a hungry ghost. A ghost he had never been able to satisfy.

The doctor's dry lips parted in the mocking twist of a scarred smile. "Oh, don't think it didn't take a while. Long enough to know what I was losing. Long enough for me to be sure that I would make them regret it."

Bruce didn't need to ask who 'they' were. He could guess. It didn't matter.

And so this is it, he thought, and he let what shadows there were veil his face, keeping his expression as concealed as he dared. The reason why Batman and Bruce Wayne have to work separately.

Because if you listened to all the reasoning and the causes and the explanations, then eventually the madness would catch you and the justice and the logic would fall away into the dark. Because when you think you are working to protect the innocent victims of an evil world there's no way to accommodate the possibility that everyone is a victim.

"And they think they have it all." Crane's voice continued on, a dry harsh undertone rustling like the wind moving through a field of corn. "But when it comes to it they're all the same. They scream, and they beg and they plead for it to end. _But it never ends_. Until you forget who you were and embrace who you are."

The doctor's eyes were sapphire, vivid and blue, burning with hate and loss and pain. All the things Bruce had lived with for so many years.

"But the toxin . . ." He stumbled for a second, groping to organize his thoughts. "You were . . ."

"Afraid? Nobody's perfect." Crane's smile was a shard of ice flashing briefly in the sunlight then disappearing with a splintering crash back into the cold deep water.

And there was another question that nagged at Bruce's clouded brain. "Did you . . . ?" He rubbed hard at his eyes, and the diesel fumes scratched at his vision, scribbling white lines of pain across the doctor's strained face. "How well did you know Henri Ducard?"

"Who?" Crane's expression was temporarily blank, almost . . . surprised, if the psychiatrist ever actually allowed that kind of weakness to show.

"It doesn't matter." Bruce cut the disappointment carefully out of his voice. Just another thing he would have to let go. In time.

The psychiatrist was fumbling awkwardly in his pocket for another pill, pale face drained, uncharacteristically clumsy. He was mumbling, dead words, murmuring to himself, and the eyes that half met Bruce's were almost pleading. "It never ends . . ." A whisper.

"So finish it." The words were harsh, hardly formed, spat out before he was even aware of having thought them. Batman's voice, he thought, with a chill.

"You really think it's that easy?" The scorn in Crane's low tone was barely concealed and Bruce walked along the razorblade of that smile with one hand over his heart and a sneer on his face that belonged to someone else.

"Isn't it?"

"Giving up caring was easy. Giving up hope seems to be more difficult." And now all the mockery and anger in Crane's bitter brittle voice was directed inwards. He found the tablet he had been looking for and snapped it neatly in two, tucking one half carefully back into his pocket. The long lashes dropped down and his head slumped back against the doorpost. The split half of the tablet dropped to the floor with a tiny click.

Bruce hesitated for a second. The warm yellow light washed over him in a balmy surge, touching his face with soft fingers that stroked the skin. And he stooped forward and picked up the pill. For a second he held it between his finger and thumb, a small dark fleck against the bright street behind the door. It didn't seem enough to make a difference.

"Come on," he said gently. "We've got an asylum to break into." And he handed Crane the tablet and walked out of the door into the light.

The road was empty and abandoned. The Narrows bore the scars of the nights of panic since the toxin had been released. Torn advertising hoardings snapped and rippled in the warm wind, grey drifts of smoke blowing between the buildings.

The fresher air felt like the purest sweetest mountain breeze after the dark fume laden atmosphere of the tunnels beneath the city. He could still smell the breath of the man who had attacked him and forcibly he pushed the last vivid image of the twisted face out of his mind. His eyes swept up to the tiles above with a tug of longing.

A few moments passed before Crane followed him out onto the pavement. The doctor had the gun pressed up against his cheek again and Bruce watched him warily out of the corner of one eye, expertly scanning the street for potential trouble. This was more like it. He knew how this was done.

"Corner of Fourth. Go. I'll cover you." Crane's voice was unexpectedly firm. If he hadn't known how unpredictable that voice could be he would never have believed it was the same man. Once again he wondered exactly who the doctor was. Who he had been. You do what you have to do, he thought, with more than a dash of resignation.

And, questionable as the wisdom of letting Crane stand behind him with a loaded gun might be, it was all he had right now. Once again his eyes swept the street. It seemed safe enough. It was the route he would have chosen himself.

He stepped down off the pavement, into the street and the breeze scuffed at his hair, pulling the longer strands down to sweep across his forehead. Turned to see Crane, gun raised, eyes narrowed, lips barely parted. "Go." And he went.

A few seconds later Crane hit the red brick wall beside him, gun in his hand, eyes alive, laughing almost happily. It seemed the medication had done its job. "Axminster's doorway. Next block."

And Bruce was almost happy too. He felt alive, strong despite the pains and the aches. This was the life he had learned so easily to love, the thrill he had sought to take away the darkness and the dullness. The adrenalin rush that wiped away all other considerations like so much driftwood in a spring tide, the speed and the timing and everything fading away into the crackling blur of the background.

"Go."

He was out in the street already, checking for any signs of life along the sidewalks and in the doorways, spinning to run to the next point. Behind him Crane watched the road, gun raised, sun sparking on the barrel. As Bruce reached the safety of the building's edge Crane slipped away to follow him and a second later they were both standing beneath the canvas cover of the store entrance, breathing a little heavier, bodies warm now in the afternoon sun.

At the end of the street ahead of them Arkham soared up into the sky, grey tiles glinting above the bricks, barred windows like blind eyes watching the street. A ceaseless vacant stare. He knew how it affected him. But he supposed that for Crane it was rather different.

Even the road was strangely eerie, the storefronts smeared and dirty, the empty rooms behind the cracked glass, abandoned tills and cans of food. And between the buildings that lined far end of the street something shuffled and moved. His hand flew out to grip Crane's shoulder. "Wait." It might only be one. But he knew better than to take that chance.

The doctor had frozen under his hand, the same snap reflex as in the car. All the muscles in his neck were twists of wire beneath the fingers, tension humming like electricity and Bruce looked sharply away from the street and down into a pair of eyes, two pale chips of turquoise. Opaque.

"Crane?"

The psychiatrist's expression was locked, closed off. Carefully, almost holding his breath, Bruce lifted his hand away from the delicate bones of Crane's shoulder. Don't freak out on me now, he thought. Not here. His hand dropped to his side, palm open, an offering of some kind.

The psychiatrist closed his eyes and let his breath slide slowly out between his lips. Unconsciously Bruce breathed out as well, tension draining into relief. He would learn.

At the end of the road a small crowd was rapidly gathering, apparently drawn together by some force stronger than fear and distrust. The herd instinct, Bruce supposed. He would have to make a note to ask Crane about it at some point, and the idea of some remotely normal future made him smile with disbelief. He'd already given up believing in his visions of the future, whatever they might hold. But giving up hope appeared to be more difficult . . .

He watched the crowd edge forward, their attention caught. There were more people emerging from the doorways and alleyways, shuffling into the light like characters in a nightmare, features indistinct. Between them and Arkham.

Crane was watching them as well, the expression on his face complicated. Too complicated by far for Bruce to even begin trying to decipher, but he saw no remorse on the fragile features. He hadn't really expected to.

"So?" he said, and he was amazed by how level his voice sounded. Another shade of Batman.

The doctor's lips moved without sound, and Bruce wondered whether he had planned this far ahead. Whether he was planning on saving any of the bullets left in the gun for them. Whether he would stand and watch as Bruce was pulled down, the muzzle of the gun resting lightly over his heart, that wistful smile sweetly brushing his lips.

He recognized that unnatural stillness, the lack of visible malice which could so easily be mistaken for patience. It was all part of that side of Crane he was sure he'd never even touched. The side he had begun to associate with the sun sliding down into a silver sea.

"Wait for me." The doctor's smile flashed briefly up at Bruce, a small tight determined smile, and he span away, out into the street. For a second the light caught on his face, bounced off the angled cheekbones and Bruce was dazzled. Then he saw what Crane was going to do and his gut twisted like a knife inside him.

"Bruce." Crane turned back to face him, moving slowly away from the clearly interested mob. A low growl rose from the crowd, hung like thunder in the warm smoky atmosphere of the afternoon. "You might need this." The gun hung from the tips of the psychiatrist's fingers, his arm swinging lazily through the air. As it left his hand the barrel flashed once, turning in the sun, spinning towards Bruce.

He stuck his hand out and caught it, fingers twisting expertly to send the handle slapping snugly into his palm. His eyes met Crane's without comprehension, unable to believe that after they had come this far Crane was going to throw everything away. To stake all their chances on one throw of a heavily loaded set of dice. Snake eyes . . .

"Get to the door." The doctor's voice was terse, but level. He was backing slowly away from the crowd and for a second he looked so broken and clumsy that Bruce almost moved to help him. Then he saw the dark smile in Crane's eyes and he knew that it was all a sham and a fake and he was ashamed at himself for having fallen so easily.

Then the doctor shuffled forwards, close enough for the people at the front of the crowd to back away. He stretched out his hand, and the expression on his face was enough to make Bruce turn away. When he looked back Crane was edging away from the mob, and they were slowly beginning to move towards him. The psychiatrist's face was drawn, lips pressed together, but his eyes were as soft and wondering as a kitten's.

Bruce turned away again, sick and helpless. The gun tapped against the side of his leg, useless against so many. He might turn them back for a moment. But then what? It should have been him out there.

Crane was backing into an alleyway. The crowd hesitated for a moment, then one by one slipped after him. For an instant the doctor's gaze rose to meet Bruce's, eyes locking above the heads of the mob and the message in them was clear. Then he vanished into the gap between the buildings, and after a few minutes the last of the crowd trickled slowly through behind him, glancing over their shoulders, reluctant to be left behind.

Bruce stood alone in the doorway for a second, watching the archway where Crane had disappeared like he almost expected something to happen. Then his shoulders dropped down, eyes pointlessly roaming the rooftops. Experimentally he raised the gun to his cheek, ran the smooth cold metal over the bone. And it felt better than he could ever have imagined.

Then he stepped down from the shop step and walked out along the block, the looming mass of Arkham growing higher above him as he moved forwards. There was a single door set in the wall that faced into the street, the standard issue steel security style door. It had no handles set into the grey mirrored surface, nothing to suggest how it operated, only a single panel of buttons set embedded in the concrete doorpost to the left.

He thought about how he felt about the Batcave. He couldn't remember exactly when they'd started calling it that, if it had been him or Alfred that first used the phrase. It had stuck. Now here he was again, washed up on the threshold of Crane's Batcave. Every man needs a hobby, he thought, and then rapidly quashed the rising surge of hysteria.

Without an audience to perform for he was finding it hard to maintain the surface impression of calm. The minutes slipped away with agonizing slowness, seconds creeping with the cold sweat that beaded his forehead.

What would Crane do? If it had been Bruce who had led away the crowd. And he imagined returning to find the door locked, the doctor gone, all of the boltholes sealed. He remembered the dragging tug of the hands of the crowd when he had fallen among them in the Batsuit. The whispering and the pawing and the whimpering and the smell of the sweat. This time there would be no escape to the rooftops.

But that wasn't who he was and he couldn't pretend otherwise. Batman would have waited for Crane and so would he. What had he been doing when he'd tied Crane to that chair? Christ . . .

He studied the control panel built into the doorpost. One to nine, standard square buttons. How many combinations did that make possible? How likely was it that the doctor would have picked something obvious?

A sudden noise startled the resting birds on the ledges high above him and he whipped around, gun pointing out into the street, grateful for the distraction.

First he saw the crowd, approaching up the street at a rapid pace, dust rising under their feet. And his heart turned over when he realised that he couldn't see Crane, and then turned over a second time when he finally did. The doctor was limping badly but he was in front of the mob and Bruce remembered with a sick revolution of his stomach the wounds that had marked Crane's fragile body when he had first found him. How much pain had Crane been masking all along?

He brought the gun up to chest height and aimed it into the crowd. For a second it swung over the psychiatrist's head, paused briefly and then moved on. Crane had given him the gun. And he had trusted him to wait for him. The doctor might be reckless with his own life but he certainly hadn't intended Bruce to shoot him now. Whatever dark scheme he might have penciled in for a later appointment.

He pulled the trigger. The bullet buried itself harmlessly in the tarmac in front of the crowd, the sharp crack of the shot sending a shower of pigeons shooting up like fireworks into the air above the building. The mob startled to a halt, a single body, temporarily put off by the sound and, he presumed, whatever they could still remember of its implications.

The doctor struggled on, stumbling on the pavement edge and Bruce had reached out and hauled him up into the doorway before he even thought about what he was doing. Before he felt the icy tension beneath his hand, felt it through the dragging breathing and the barely controlled heaving of the damaged ribcage.

Damn Crane's problems all to hell, he thought with a rough impatience, and he pushed the psychiatrist away from him. Crane hit the metal of the door behind him with a soft thud. He was breathing hard, hair tangled over his face, chest heaving. "I need three minutes."

Bruce nodded shortly, eyes still locked on the faces of the crowd, the feet shifting restlessly in the dirt of the gutter. He couldn't believe the risk Crane had just taken.

The front runners of the mob shuffled forwards and he fired once at the ground in front of them, sending the dirt spraying up into their faces. Beside him Crane tapped calmly at the control panel, horribly, irritatingly unconcerned by the situation. Bruce could see enough of the psychiatrist's face out of the corner of his eyes to know that that frustratingly sweet tranquil smile was resting on Crane's lips. Whatever the doctor was afraid of, death didn't seem to feature on the list.

The murmuring of the crowd was getting louder, an insistent nagging buzz that scraped like barbed wire at the ache in his temples. He was trying hard not to look at individual faces, not to see the details that marked them out as fathers, children, lovers. One of the men on the far flank of the crowd was still wearing the tattered but recognizable uniform of one of Gotham's fire crews. The badge sparkled and caught in the sunlight, little stabs of gold piercing the warm air.

There was a muffled bleep and a mechanical whirring and gratefully he turned his head around, just enough to see the look of triumph slide over the doctor's face. Then the heavy door swung open with a click and a wave of stale hospital air and he had just enough time to let Crane slip past, keep him covered and follow him in, dodging through the arch.

The crowd moved agitatedly with them, one by one slowly edging forwards across the pavement towards the doorway, the muttering increasing in intensity.

Behind the door there were flickering yellow lights and dry cold air, and a gentle hum of electricity above them. With a quick glance over his shoulder Bruce saw the long corridor stretching away, leading far into the gloom of the asylum. He could never have believed that Arkham would one day seem welcoming to him.

Crane looked up, shadowy in the sudden cool darkness of the corridor, and for an instant his face was alive with pride and relief. It was an expression so close to normal that Bruce's heart almost stopped beating.

Then the psychiatrist turned away to stare out through the narrow gap between the door and the wall, watching the faces of the mob, torn between fear and rage, hovering anxiously on the pavement. The smile that twisted at his mouth was almost beautiful in its innocence.

Bruce bit his lip. Tore his eyes away from Crane's pale absorbed face and pushed the heavy door firmly shut. It closed with a sound like a lead weight slamming into the ground. Heavy. Final. Behind him the noise raced away to echo off the walls of the corridor, fading into confusion and clamour in the distant reaches of the building.

Crane rubbed at the bridge of his nose with the back of his injured hand and crouched down, resting his back against the wall. The tail of the bandage was flapping loose, a dirty grey strip of damp fabric hanging down. He looked very small and slightly bewildered. It would have been almost endearing if there was any way of forgetting exactly who the doctor was. What he was capable of.

Around them Arkham echoed and buzzed, six floors of cells and offices and padded rooms with cameras angled steeply over the barred doors. The emergency generator was still firing the empty corridors with uneven yellow toned light, brown shadows painting distorted portraits on the walls. A few blessed moments of peace.

And there was something Bruce had to know. Even if he didn't really want to hear the answer.

"Was it true?"

Crane looked up at him, all 'is now really the time?' eyebrows arching, cheeks still flushed with red. "Was what true?"

"The things you said. At the station."

The smallest of superior smiles crept up and twitched at one corner of the psychiatrist's grey mouth. "Did you want it to be?" The hard edge was back in the dry voice, like a hidden ridge under cold water and Bruce cursed the drugs that were softening his mind even as they soothed his body. Would he never learn?

The doctor's smile lingered as he rose and turned to walk away and an uncomfortable sensation of disquiet hung in the air behind it. If Crane was planning something, and Bruce gave full credit where credit was due, if anyone was capable of planning through the madness and the craziness that had characterized the last few days it was Crane, then it would be Arkham that he would choose as his backdrop.

And he thought about the doctor spinning out into the sunlit street to lead the crowd away. About the gun flashing in the light as it left Crane's hand. About believing that something mattered. He watched the slight figure walking down the corridor, perspective dwarfing the small frame.

The psychiatrist turned, looked back over one shoulder, eyelashes drooping affectedly, a self satisfied pout shaping his mouth. "Oh, and Bruce?"

He raised his head, tired now.

Crane pushed the hair out of his eyes. "Henri Ducard? I knew him pretty well."

And before Bruce could even formulate a response, even marshal enough words to begin to let Crane know what he was thinking, he saw the doctor pause again. Look back at him half apologetically, half shyly.

"Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

"It's been a pleasure. And I really mean that." He stepped carelessly to one side of the corridor, and the smile that shone out at Bruce was warm and sincere. "Don't blame yourself."

Bruce's fingers tightened over the handle of the gun but he didn't raise it from his side. He'd seen this moment coming all along. Like a train rushing towards him in a dark tunnel, headlights blazing into his eyes.

The doctor nodded, slowly. Thoughtfully. Then he stepped away into the wall, into the open hallway that Batman would have noticed long before.

The heavy door slammed shut with a crashing thud. And Crane was gone.

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Thanks for reading.


	24. Keeping a hold of what you just let go

Well, it's back. Thanks for the reviews, as always, much appreciated.

It's been a bit of an interesting month. Sick horse, vet's bills, airport chaos and identity theft. And stuff. But hopefully it's done now.

This is a short chapter, but hopefully it makes sense. There will be more. Shortly.

Thanks for reading.

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Arkham hummed and buzzed like a dying machine, the staccato echo of the slamming door vanishing into the silence. As if it had never been.

Bruce stood staring down at the gun in his hand, half stupid, still half tranquilised, and wondered why he wasn't more surprised. Why the sound of the door crashing shut fitted so neatly into the spaces in his head, a heavy bolt sliding firmly into place. Even back when he had thought he was calling all the shots Crane had somehow been in complete control. But he'd never really believed that Crane only wanted him to go as far as Arkham until now.

The overhead lights burned unsteadily, the shiny silver windows in the doors further down the corridor blacking in and out of vision. Blinking like eyes. Crane had been so obviously glad to be back inside Arkham's walls that Bruce had unconsciously absorbed a little of that relief. Now he was alone the building didn't feel nearly so welcoming. He'd never liked hospitals.

He glanced down and turned the gun over in his palm. But it was a foolish place to look for answers. His head was still unpleasantly muzzy, occasional thoughts breaking the surface and then gliding away before he could properly catch hold of them. There had been a time when he had thought he knew what he was doing. More than that, there had been a time when he was _sure_. It was hard to imagine.

Crane had lied to him again and again. From the beginning. Lies that he had wanted so badly to believe because there didn't seem to be anything else left to believe in. Pretty lies that had led him to believe in all of those desperately tempting shades of grey. That had shown him how fine the line really was, if you let yourself believe in it.

And for the first time in a couple of days he thought about Rachel. Her pale face upturned to his, her eyes wide and wet and clear. No fear in her voice, only concern and something stronger than concern, something he couldn't quite put a name to. She had wanted to know who he was. And she hadn't just meant Batman. He knew that, now that it was too late.

"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me." The gun brushed a cold grey line across his cheek, a metal feather falling gently past his cheek. And it was true. Whatever Crane thought, and he knew exactly what Crane thought. "You may just be the one person in Gotham crazier than I am."

Maybe. But whatever crazy fucked up shit was going on inside his head made no difference to how people saw him. You could do the right thing for the wrong reasons. And no one would ever suspect otherwise.

He'd been on the other side of that equation too. Robbing his own damn company. Bribing the police with stolen money. Rolling filthy cigarettes in fragile pages torn from a Red Cross bible. Tasting the black tar on his lips.

Ducard had pulled him up out of that dark maze. And offered him a different world. A better world, he had thought, at the time.

Well, it had been a better world. Yes, there had been cold and hunger and pain beyond anything he had known but racing behind it all a crazy _happiness_. Because there was a way to make it all make sense. Because finally there was someone who understood everything.

And, of course, in the end, it had turned out to be Bruce who didn't understand. Which was why this time he was going to have to make his decisions for himself.

His head lurched again and he leant forward, wondering if he might be sick. Listening to the whispering voices in his head, words he couldn't pull away from.

"You feel dead inside. You feel like nothing you do will ever make any difference. And you go through the motions of your life like maybe it might matter to someone. But it doesn't."

Crane's voice was as clear as it had ever been and the memory of those muted intelligent eyes scraped a small raw patch in Bruce's mind. Crane spinning out into the street and smiling up at him, smiling with a sweet complicity. Trustingly.

And what it came down to, in the end, was this. He could stand in that corridor, in the asylum, and let the memories suck him down into an endless spiral of tired promises. And when they reclaimed the Narrows and retook Arkham they could put him in a little twelve by twelve padded cell and measure out his moods with his meals. And that wouldn't really be so bad.

But what he wanted, more than anything, was the same thing he had always wanted. Craved. Searched for in the mountains and on the rooftops of Gotham and so hopelessly needed back there with Crane holding the gun against his head and that sick razor twist of longing tugging so hard under his ribs. Peace. And if he walked away now then he would never find it.

Revenge and justice were just two tarnished sides of a dirty dollar and which ever way it fell it was all leading to the same place. The search for that stillness which his heart had failed to find. Even in the mountains. Even in the twisted burning wreckage of a subway train. Even in the bullet ripping through Joe Chill's chest. All he could do was keep looking.

One thing he knew for certain. He wasn't going to kill anyone. Not even Dr Crane. Even if he asked nicely. He could still hear the crunch of the metal edge slamming into the forehead of the kidnapper on the roof and he pressed his tired eyes tightly shut and tried to think about some thing else

It was time to take stock of his surroundings. The long corridor stretching away. The endless doors. Three cream painted metal hot water pipes ran down the wall beside him, institutional plumbing, cold now, of course. They turned sharply above the line of the floor and split both ways, running along the sides of the corridor into the scarred serrated metal of two huge Victorian style radiators. It seemed like as good a place as any.

The gun tucked neatly and easily away down the back of the radiator, wedged tightly between the curving steel and the chipped cream paint. After a few seconds he pulled it back out and removed the clip, tapping the ammunition carefully out onto the palm of his hand and filling his pockets. After all, there was no need to make things easy for anyone else.

All the floorplans of the asylum were still fresh and clear in his head, a legacy of Batman. And Alfred's research. Transposing them onto the dimly lit maze of corridors was the kind of mental exercise he needed. The kind that precluded actually thinking.

The sun dropped slowly down from a Mexican sky into the sparkling lights of a crystal blue sea. A sea the same colour as Crane's eyes. The same colour as the sky above the Narrows. He let his breath slide slowly out, the breath he hadn't even known he was holding.

Streaks of darkness painted the ceiling above him, a yellow light clicking and buzzing over his head. The generator wasn't going to hold out forever and the thought of trying to navigate through Arkham in total darkness was less than appealing. He closed his hand slowly over the emptiness where the gun wasn't.

The trick, he thought, mouth twisting into an involuntarily derisive smile, is to keep moving. And his footsteps echoed off the corridor walls a fraction behind the beating of his heart.

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Thanks again for reading. More soon.


	25. It was easy when i didn't know you yet

Er, hi :-). Apologies for the interminable delay in updates. There was a long pear-shaped period. Anyway. As you were. And again, thanks for the reviews.

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Even Bruce could appreciate that there was a certain beauty to Arkham. To the repetition; to the endlessly serrated patterns of doors and windows and bars, over and over. In the unstructured wastelands of insanity this kind of architecture made sense, oppressive as it was. And yet at the same time there was something horrible about it; about the way every corridor looked the same, the way a man could walk and walk and end up exactly where he started. There was something familiar about that too, he thought, and he didn't quite smile.

What he had found in the mountains, what had found _him_, was a sense of purpose. Of direction. Somewhere out there in the confusion and blur of Gotham and Batman he had let that go. And when the wheel turned it all came back to Crane. Before Crane came along everything had been black and white, or close enough that the edges were still easy to see. Now he didn't see anything that easily. There were shades and shades of grey and somewhere between them Dr Crane was slipping away into the Gotham night, into the battered shelter of Arkham's corridors.

But there was one thing that made sense. Some people were innocent victims. People who got hurt through no fault of their own, the people he would stand in front of until his last breath. He had been that innocent victim once and there had been no one to come between him and the world. Perhaps Crane had been too. Once upon a time, long ago. But that didn't really matter, now.

And there was something he could take from Arkham; from the patterns and the repetition. It turned out that everything really was just history, repeating. He knew exactly where Crane was going to be. After all, he thought, when an addict needs the substance which feeds their addiction, the very last thing on their mind was the people who were standing between them and their goal. Oh, Crane was smart enough, more than smart enough, to know that Bruce would know where to find him. He just didn't care. Again, that crazy recklessness.

There was a flicker and bang as a light burned out behind him; darkness imminent. His time was limited. In the vaulted room somewhere below him the doctor was undoubtedly making use of the minutes far better than he was. Bruce wondered exactly how much toxin was left; whether Crane had had the foresight to retain enough for his own personal supply. There were noises all around him now; scrapings and clanks that made him speed up, the sound of his own breathing, the slow whirr and sigh of Arkham closing like an iron lung over his head. It was so hard to keep a hold of his sense of purpose, to keep chasing these ghosts, when he was so tired, so tired –

To his left a stairwell plunged down into shadow; he took the steps two at a time, grateful for the support of the railing, for the comfortingly solid slide of steel. He was horribly aware that the growing darkness might not be entirely environmental; that Crane's gently administered injection, that merciful little pinprick that had taken the edge off his pain, might have come with an added bonus. It made sense, he thought, and he admired the mind that could keep all these threads together, even as its own weave frayed and tore. He knew that he wasn't doing nearly such a professional job. Once again he contemplated the possibility, incredible as it might seem, that Crane had planned all of this from the very beginning. That he had known that Batman would come back for him even before Bruce had made that decision.

And finally he was fighting. Fighting to stay above the lovely tide of shadow, not to slip gratefully out into the warm waters of unconsciousness. He had come so close, so very very close to accepting that gift; to letting go of whatever it was he thought he was holding onto. To giving up. You seem to have left the job of saving the city half finished. Crane had taunted him with his failures, had held that bright ideal out as bait and Bruce had taken it. And now he had to believe it. Believe that it was possible to finish what he had started; that Gotham could be turned back from the edge. Because if he did not, then he should have died on that train with Henri Ducard. Or worse. He should have put his arms around Ducard's shoulders and they should have watched together as Gotham tore itself apart; because if he didn't believe the city was worth saving then he was already complicit in its destruction.

At the final turn of the corridor; mirrored in the tiled floor, the light from the world outside stole in; refracted and dulled by dust and gloom. Bruce had already been in this basement once; had watched as Ra's Al Ghul's men poured litre upon litre of toxin down into the rushing waters. Now he was more cautious. Batman had abilities and capacities in which he was painfully lacking. At the side of the corridor ran the initial structure of the walkway system which crisscrossed the vaults; vertiginous towers of black metal crusted with age and disuse. It seemed as good a place as any from which to make an initial assessment. Down here the sound of the water and the echo of the generator was loud enough to kill any chance that he might hear Crane moving around. And experience had taught him well enough that if Crane did not want to be heard then he wasn't going to be.

Painfully he swung himself up through the beams, unable to bite back a gasp as the weight of his body tugged at his ribs. Whatever else Crane's chemical cocktail might be doing to him, right now it was giving him enough cushioning to carry on and he was hardly ungrateful. The inside of his mouth tasted of blood; the roots of his teeth were sore. If he could have laid down there and then on the floor, curled up in some dark quiet corner and slept for a thousand years, then he would have done it without hesitation.

With a final effort he dragged himself up over the edge and lay for a second, panting, his eyes closed. He was halfway now, halfway between accepting that beautiful strange sedation or getting up and moving on; halfway down the road that his whole life had been a fight against. It was true. It was easy, so very easy, to give up caring. But hope, hope . . . that was more difficult. He remembered Crane's face; that brief unguarded sadness. His own stupid unforgivable belief that he might not be the only one . . .

The walkway beneath him shook, briefly. His body retained just enough instinct, just enough strength to roll, to push away; to get him, blinking and wincing, to a standing position. For a second he thought he was going to throw up; his stomach rose in a tight wadded ball to meet his throat and he choked. And in front of him the Scarecrow stood patiently, waiting, and Bruce, eyes stinging in the light, was briefly amused by how little surprise he felt. He had swallowed Crane's lies again and again. Whatever he had wanted to believe, the doctor had always been in control and really, nothing had changed. He had seen how far Crane would go to make sure of that.

And so, he thought, here we are. The end of the line. With an effort he raised his head. "Crane." Although he wasn't really sure if that was appropriate any more. The doctor isn't in right now, he remembered, and the memory was like a knife in his back. That pale face. Those frightened eyes. The twist to the mouth. If he really wanted to argue the point, perhaps he had been the one to end the doctor's chances of recovery. Then he remembered the other things Crane had said. Henri Ducard? I knew him pretty well. Whoever Crane had been before the toxin took some parts of him away, he had hardly been without guilt. Perhaps he preferred Crane like this; where his insanity sometimes let slip tiny glimpses of some kind of past innocence. Where his control occasionally lapsed. He was almost sorry that that time was over, now.

Even the Scarecrow's body language was different. But the voice, that hypnotist's voice was the same. "Bruce. Bruce." The doctor sighed melodramatically but his eyes behind the mask were like twin holes punched in a blank sheet of paper, empty and uncommunicative. "I confess, I'm a little disappointed in you. I really had thought you might turn out to be slightly less predictable than this."

Bruce shrugged, wrestling to hide the streak of pain that went down his side as he moved. "You didn't have to wait for me."

The slender figure shifted forwards a little, just enough to make absolutely certain Bruce had seen the spray can dangling so lightly from one pale hand. Even with his face covered (and Bruce was careful not to look too closely at the mask, those memories were still raw) there was still that spooky quality of dissonance about the man, something so wrong, some kind of damage that Bruce couldn't take all the responsibility for.

"No." A thoughtfulness in the voice, that cold considered reasoning that was part and parcel of Crane's madness. "I think I did. Survival of the fittest is such a _comforting_ concept, don't you think? And I could hardly rely on you not to have some kind of misguided notion that you should try to stop me."

Bruce smiled, almost against his will. "I got this far."

The Scarecrow nodded, the can raised a little higher now. His shoulders shaking a little, the confident glaze that he seemed to have put on with the mask sliding away to reveal something less controlled. "I won't pretend that I'm not going to regret this. A little." Crane's words shivered along a rusty razorblade of ancient hurt, the kind of hurt that Bruce recognized just well enough to make his nails dig sharply into his palms. Ten little points of pain between him and the edge. He didn't have to deny his compassion. But he didn't have to like it either.

"You made a mistake when you left the gun behind." Crane's tired voice was flat and unrevealing as his eyes now, and Bruce tried not to look at the hand holding the spray can. Pale grazed hand, angled knuckles as white as he remembered the doctor's face. And those long pretty fingers curled so easily around the trigger. The slightest flexion in the back of the wrist, the gentlest of tremors through those bones.

He tried not to move; if possible not to breathe. His head was packed with ice cold needles, there was an insistent buzzing now in his ears. "You can't change who you are." He tried to inject some confidence into his voice but his eyes didn't meet Crane's level blue stare. "Only what you do."

"But I can change who _you_ are." The arrogance in the psychiatrist's voice was softened with something so close to regret that Bruce felt his breath catch in his throat. He looked up, caught off guard. Off balance, again. "There's something you should know. The truth is . . . I think you already knew. The human mind is ever so fragile. Like a champagne glass. One wrong note and . . . gone. Once someone has been exposed to the toxin for more than a few hours there _is_ no cure. Game over." He paused, and Bruce knew, without needing to see, that Crane was smiling, that unsettling sweet smile.

"And Bruce, I'll let you into a little secret." The eyes behind the mask were burning now, bright like embers in snow. "This . . ." His hand came up and slowly, sensuously stroked the rough fabric covering his head. ". . . is for everybody else. I know who I am. How about you?"

He slipped the mask away from his face in one smooth gesture, pale face aloof, perfectly composed. His pupils were so large as to make the blue eyes seem almost black. A peaceful smile hung on his mouth, lids sweeping down over his eyes. His voice was wistful now, almost charming. "Goodbye Bruce. Sweet dreams." And he squeezed the trigger.

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	26. Being him just wasn't that much fun

Yeah. Nothing like striking while the iron is hot, is there? ;-)

And despite my best efforts, I still don't own them. Or anything, much.

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The doctor's steps died away along the metal walkway and the darkness rose up behind Bruce like a storm. His head was full of screaming twisted faces, cold hands tearing at his hair, nails scraping down the blackboard of his skin. In front of him a tower of black swept up in an endless spiral through the roof to the sky and irresistibly his eyes were drawn up into the night. To the shrieking cloud of bats he had known would be waiting, and far far beyond them, in the sky he knew it was impossible to see, hung the shimmering image of the Batsignal.

It had been two days since he took the antidote and apparently two days was long enough for it to have worn off almost completely. His body, already weakened by pain and chemical assault, sank under this new blow, deeper and faster than before, staggering dangerously on the height of the walkway.

A flickering torrent of images spun past him; like warped distortions in funhouse mirrors. The crying child on the roof, a silent child in a window, Alfred's face, Crane's face as he slipped from consciousness in the chair, Gordon, Rachel. "I would imagine not, sir." And behind them all, there and yet not there, the mask of the Batsuit, and behind that his own face. Or was it Ducard's? He shrank away from the revelation, from the bewildering flurry of sounds and pictures, from the skin crawling horror of the bats. Far ahead there was a deep tunnel of grey and he ran towards it with gratitude, ran for that still quietness even as what was left of his conscious mind screamed for him to stop.

Crane's voice, cutting through the madness like a razor: "Everything becomes surprisingly simple once you've finally gone over the edge."

And so here it was. The edge. He looked up into the face of his mother, still young, still beautiful. Mother, don't worry . . . There were bullets in the dark, the explosion and the cheap crack of a handgun. His father lying in the gutter, the blood and the dirt on the expensive material of his suit, the angle of his legs horribly wrong. "Bruce. Don't be afraid." Ducard laughing at him as he sank into the ice; the black water sucking him down into the numbing cold.

Between him and the spiral of grey, the looming figure of Batman. A man, laughing to death. A body, toppling from a rooftop. Rachel, convulsing in his arms. The Batmobile, screaming through the Gotham night. His heart, racing unevenly; some kind of poison in his veins. The Batman reached out for him and he shrank back, terror paralyzing his body, his breathing slower and harder. "Everyone loses their parents, Bruce." His body on flames, falling.

Crane's voice again, or Ducard's or his own; it was too hard to remember: "Don't fight it." Darkness descending; a darkness more complete than oblivion. This mask that he was so afraid of.

He looked out through the slits and the world was so many shades of black it was almost beautiful. And he saw the truth he had been running from. That Batman was far wilder, far darker, far more dangerous than he would ever fully comprehend, and that the best he could do was to steer that force, to direct it and to channel it and to keep it from doing more harm than good. That from now on there would always be the two of them; but as long as he was winning then maybe Gotham might be saved. Everything . . . became surprisingly simple . . .

His eyes snapped open and he was falling, falling; the world blurred past and he had just enough sense left to snap out an arm, grab at a twisted metal spar and hang, gasping and coughing. Batman's reflexes. Batman's body, strong enough to drag him back up to shudder and retch on the metal floor of the walkway.

There was a dark throbbing in his ears and at first he thought it was his own blood, rushing like an angry flood through his head. One hand grasping at the railing, knees grating tender skin across the rough lattice of rust and iron, he dragged himself painfully to his feet. Stood for a moment, head bent forward, deep shuddering breaths shaking his chest.

He was still afraid. But the darkness was part of him now. The last thing his parents had given him. He had done all his running years ago.

And with a splintering crash that ripped through the echoes of the building like an explosion the huge double doors at the end of the hall burst apart. A pair of white halogen beams shone full into Bruce's sore eyes, and half blinded he struggled to make out the shape of the vehicle emerging from the dark below him. A shape that seemed nightmarishly familiar.

As the dust settled, the throbbing that thundered in his head resolved itself into the dying roar of an engine that he knew only too well. And impossibly, madly, the Batmobile skidded to a halt in the middle of the empty floor far below.

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	27. The only thing that never really changed

O-kay. That's prolly it for the night. But as almost the entire rest of this story is actually written, I promise that there will be no more seasonal delays ;-).

Thanks for staying with it.

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It was, he supposed, only natural. He had known that Crane would eventually lead him through the gently sloping foothills of insanity to some kind of beautiful mountain of madness. And here he was. From this perspective it was almost interesting. The Batmobile. He should have realised that insanity was a beginning, not an end. Obviously he hadn't been paying attention. He wondered what other strange hallucinations he was going to be subject to, and why, of all things, he couldn't hallucinate himself some uncracked ribs. And a new head.

Below him the Batmobile rocked into silence and he watched, intrigued. He wondered whether it was something Crane had organized to maximize his discomfort and really, if it was, then he was more than a little impressed. He wondered where Crane was, and what he was doing, and how he planned to get out of Arkham. Or_ if_ he planned to get out of Arkham. He had a horrible vision of the psychiatrist waiting for recovery teams; tucked away in some dark haunted corridor, that blissed-out, burned-out smile and his eyes softly wondering.

And here, looking as lovely as he remembered, the Batmobile. One of the few things that he had left behind. Everything else, every one else, had left him in the end. Even Crane.

The doors softly popped open and Bruce watched, holding his breath between his teeth. From the floor below, mercifully slightly muffled by the background noise of Arkham, there came the sound of some creative but heartfelt cursing. A second later, Lucius Fox struggled awkwardly up out of the car into the half light.

"I am too damn _old_ for getting in and out of these _damn_ seats."

Bruce blinked. From the other side of the car came an equally heartfelt, but less colourful response; a voice that Bruce knew so well, so well.

"Perhaps we should consider building some kind of conversion kit?"

Alfred emerged into the gloom, a little disheveled and clearly slightly overheated. That old familiar resignation on his face. Lucius smirked at him, rakishly, across the bonnet. "Now, where would be the fun in that?"

And of all the things Bruce had expected from insanity this was not even on the list. He had never for a second blamed Alfred for leaving. Even without Crane's undoubted embellishments he had done more than enough to justify Alfred's decision. He had lost control, and this was the price he had paid for it and he knew in his heart that had Alfred not left that would have been worse, far worse. And yet . . .

Fox was looking around him, stretching his stiff legs. "You know where he's going to be?"

Alfred shrugged. "I normally find it sufficient to follow the trail of destruction to its source."

Fox grinned. "Ever thought about radio tagging him?"

Alfred's eyes rolled. "Now, where would be the fun in that?"

High up on the walkway Bruce spent a moment swallowing his pride, and what little remained of his self respect. He had spent his whole life relying on Alfred's kindness, on his unfailing loyalty to the last remaining representative of the family he had loved and served. When Bruce was eventually ready to come back, that first time, he had never doubted that Alfred would be waiting for him. And finally he had done something he had believed that Alfred couldn't forgive. Shouldn't forgive. Alfred's affection had been the only constant he could remember, but he wasn't sure he deserved that kind of friendship.

As for Fox, he had risked his position at the company for Bruce and for Batman, even without Bruce allowing him fully into his confidence. Not that Fox had wanted in. But it looked as if Batman's brutality to Crane had forced Alfred into making that confidence. And from the mischievous smile on Fox's lips it didn't appear that he was altogether unhappy about it. Besides, Bruce was pretty sure that Fox had always harboured a desire to take the Tumbler out into the streets. He was probably more offended that Gordon got the chance first.

Gordon. For a second Bruce was back in that dark nauseous spiral. There were things Batman had done - and he stopped himself - things _he_ had done, that would have to be accounted for. He knew Gordon well enough to believe that he would only ever get one chance. After that, he was on his own.

High in the rafters, caught in dusty beams of light pigeons jostled and flapped, and he spun round; mind still on edge, his nerves strung like piano wire under the aching surface of his skin. All of his senses on overdrive.

He could still walk away. Instead he looked up at the ceiling, making sure there was no camera there to record the scene. Not that Batman's credibility wouldn't be completely blown in any case by video footage of these two struggling gracelessly out of the car; and for the first time in a long while he allowed himself a real genuine smile. Then he leant forwards over the railing and flipped, as neatly as he could manage, to the floor.

The shock of landing took his breath away; the pain in his ribs cutting deep, a tight band of wire over his lungs. In the dim light of the dirty windows he watched Alfred's face turn from alarmed to reserved to concerned in less than a second. He was, vaguely, aware that he probably was not looking at his best. Fox, less reserved and with less recent history with Bruce was quicker to express this fact. "Jesus H. Christ. What the hell happened to you?"

Bruce thought about trying to explain, then thought better of it. Time was not on his side. There was something important he still had to do, and he knew that Alfred and Lucius had not come after him merely to take him home. He wished he could have taken a picture of Lucius's face though.

Alfred was looking at him narrowly; inspecting the damage, his expression carefully guarded. Bruce didn't know how long it would take for him to rebuild some part of the trust they had once shared, how long it would be before Alfred would look at him without that tiredness, that sadness in his eyes. If that would ever happen. But what went on in the next few hours was undoubtedly going to play some part, and he cursed the fact that fate had once again left him dependent on Dr. Crane.

"He isn't far away," he said, not knowing if it was the truth but gratified that he didn't need to make any further explanations.

He wondered whether it was him Alfred had come for, or Batman. Whether this was about forgiveness, or Gotham. Perhaps the two were connected now. He couldn't count on distancing himself from what he did in the mask anymore; Bruce Wayne and Batman were part of the same story and there was nothing he could do about that except make sure that he was the one in control.

A part of him, far in the back of his mind, expressed a kind of oblique gratitude to Crane for this new clarity. He wouldn't have put it past the psychiatrist to have had this in mind all the time. What had Crane said to him? "I know who I am. How about you?" Well. Now he knew. It was an uncomfortable kind of knowledge, but it was important. In a world where he had been left very little to cling to, it was almost all he had.

Perhaps Crane really had been genuinely good at his job, once. Almost as good as Henri Ducard, and once again Bruce wondered how well they really had known each other. There were so many things about the doctor he didn't fully understand. After all Ducard had come so close to turning Bruce into some kind of dark monster of vengeance. Who was he to say that Crane hadn't received some kind of fatal push in that direction?

Once there had been a time that he had believed that he was in a position to judge, that he could make that kind of decision. If the time he had spent with the psychiatrist had taught him anything it was about shades of grey. And yet the way Crane had reacted to the crowds in the subway, on the streets of the narrows had filled him with an anger so pure, so incendiary that it was far beyond anything he had felt for Ducard. It was so easy to fall for the promise in a pretty face and a beautiful mind, so easy to believe in the possibility of redemption, and surely that was forgivable?

Alfred was already moving to the car, reaching behind the seats. When he straightened back up he was holding the Batsuit over his arm. Fox was studying Bruce with obvious alarm.

"Are you really sure you're up to this now?"

Bruce reached out for the suit, let his hand close firmly over the black fabric. His eyes didn't quite meet Alfred's. "As I'll ever be," he said, and his voice was suddenly a lot firmer. A lot closer to Batman's. It didn't feel quite as good as it used to, but there was still a thrill in his spine, a freedom against his heart that he knew he could no longer live without. He had come as far as he could without Batman. Now they were going to take Gotham, together, street by street if necessary. And if this was insanity, well, he was ready for it. After all, he'd had the best teacher anyone could ask for.

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	28. He'll take you out any open door

ahem So there's more. Look on this as payback. A years worth of updates in one night (!). You don't get that kind of service just anywhere . . .

In which no-one really wins or loses.

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Bruce couldn't decide if he was more alarmed or impressed that Alfred had seen fit to bring the shotgun with him. The Batmobile, as he had no doubt Fox had attempted to explain, was armed to the teeth and any additional weaponry was probably unnecessary. But Alfred had stubbornly refused to leave the house without it and in the end Lucius had been forced to capitulate, although with the proviso that it not be loaded whilst they were in the car.

They were as difficult, in their way, as each other, he thought affectionately. He had hardly dared touch the Batmobile for fear that Lucius might have made some of his little 'adjustments'. Now his main concern was being unexpectedly shot at; although he was fairly certain the body armour could handle it. He could hear them bickering quietly behind him about the best way to load as much of the toxin as possible into the Batmobile. He only hoped that his instinct was right and that Crane would come back to check on him at some point, possibly to make notes.

There was a doorway between the room where the Batmobile was parked and the room where the storm drain opened down into the water mains and he slipped through it quietly, pushing the heavy door to behind him.

Alfred would be sure to call him on the radio if he was needed; although he was more concerned for the health of Dr. Crane than anyone else. He remembered watching Alfred shoot crows as a boy. It had been enlightening.

His body was still humming faintly to the tune of the toxin; his pupils wide in the pale light. The tiredness had left him, although for how long he could not hope to guess, with the putting on of the Batsuit. It was like being reborn. It was as if his body now tuned itself to the suit; as if the equipment he carried with him was an extension of his own limbs. As if the suit gave him strength. And that, he thought, probably wasn't too far from the truth. It was just as well. He was going to need all the help he could get.

And still the thought of Crane pricked at him; it caught him in his conscience and in his imagination, it got lodged in his throat like a pin-bone. So many times he had concluded that the only thing he could do with Crane would be to end it, and had justified that thought with the belief that it would be a mercy. And that he still almost believed. Crane was at his most disconcerting when he allowed his desire for death to show. And that meant he was also at his most dangerous.

Running now through the list of alternatives he was forced to conclude that they were thin on the ground. Handing Crane over to the police, while it would undoubtedly earn him points with Gordon, hardly seemed an option. He couldn't believe that anywhere would succeed in keeping the psychiatrist where he did not want to be for long. And he refused to even examine the thought of Crane caged. That brilliant mind, subdued by drugs, those blue eyes staring eternally into the grey spaces of an Arkham cell.

"You ever worn a straitjacket?" Crane had a way of cutting straight through Bruce's facades; a directness that was only enhanced by his insanity. And there was something strangely fascinating in his sickness; in his capacity to sit back and explore the limits of his own madness.

Crane had made his brilliance and his frailty a weapon; one which he seemed equally happy to use against the population of Gotham or himself. Or Batman, Bruce thought, and he tried to ready himself for whatever he might find. He couldn't help but feel that in their last encounter the doctor had had the upper hand.

Once again he was struck by the sense of Arkham around him; the way the building seemed to breath, groaning under the weight of its secrets and sorrows. The rays of light filtering hazily down to the floor; evening sunshine now, less bright than before. The age and the strength of the foundations, and above him, soaring up into the sky, all those floor of corridors and rooms. And somewhere, not too far away, the basement Crane had made his own.

He remembered what the doctor had said, back in the subway, that there was a tunnel to the station, and inwardly he shuddered at the thought of returning there; to the bodies on the platform, to the dark oil stained tracks.

In the cemetery dark shadows at the edge of the room it was all too easy to imagine hostile eyes, following his every move, to imagine that Arkham's previous wave of inhabitants hadn't all made their departure the previous day. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement, something too slight to be definitive but distinct enough to send him on the defensive. To send him up onto the balls of his feet, eyes narrowed, listening hard to the noises behind the rush of water, the slip and gurgle of the open pipes. Twisting his head to try and catch another glimpse.

Again, something flickered, and this time he was ready. He flung himself into the shadows, snatched and grabbed. Something scratched and slid across the armour plate at his chest; there was a short struggle and then he had Dr. Crane by the scruff of the neck. By the collar, he thought darkly, of his own shirt. Crane fought and struggled, desperate, but the knife he had been holding was already on the ground and he was obviously far from well.

Still, it took far longer than Bruce had expected before he finally went limp against Batman's hands; before the snarl left the white face. He was breathing hard, his thin chest shaking, his eyes wide. All the bruises and the scars of the burn standing out, dark and red against the pale skin. He didn't look dangerous, and it was a mistake Bruce had made far too many times already.

"Surprised to see me?" At least for a second he allowed himself to celebrate what had seemed a ridiculously easy victory. And, he noted with no little satisfaction, Crane did look genuinely shaken.

The doctor's head was thrown back, the expression in his eyes impossible to read now. His lips moved for a second into the angry ghost of a sneer.

Bruce shrugged. Half Crane's venom was in his voice; if he didn't want to talk that was fine with him. It only made things easier; stripped away the complications, the confusion that the psychiatrist was such an expert at creating. The layers of ambiguity which had so effectively crippled Bruce, and turned Batman into a destructive force of rage. Batman, who now twisted one of Crane's arms up behind his back, who's voice was rough and devoid of emotion and for whom Bruce was suddenly profoundly grateful.

"Walk," he said, and although he had expected resistance there was none. Once again he wondered exactly how much damage Crane's slim body had taken over the last couple of days; whether there were injuries there that he knew nothing about. There was a strange acquiescence in the way the doctor was moving, a resignation in the lines of his neck.

Fifty paces, Bruce thought; fifty paces back to the Batmobile, fifty paces until Crane is no longer my problem. He had no doubt that Alfred and Fox would be the first to insist that the psychiatrist was taken directly to the police and it was oddly comforting to know that the decision was no longer his to make. It was over; these restless days of uncertainty. No more games.

He gave Crane's arm an extra little twist, more out of a desire to ensure he was secure than anything more mean spirited. Right then, he could think of nothing he would like more than to hand Crane over to the proper authorities. After all, he would come to less harm than he had with Batman.

Forty paces. Beside them the open cover of the storm drain, the water foaming past. The sound drowning everything else out. And he should have known, he should have known. For a moment time stopped.

He was suddenly fighting, struggling for his life, high on a slippery ledge in the Batcave, Crane's thin fingers wrapped around his neck. Below them the seething pool of the waterfall, the icy tide of the flood. Sliding, sliding towards the edge. He should have known.

In the same moment Crane's head snapped up, jerked towards something, some sound Bruce hadn't heard. And, like the audience of a skilled conjuror, his attention was misdirected for just long enough. Just long enough for Crane to wrap a leg around his ankle; to lash out with more strength than Bruce could have believed he possessed. For the arm Batman was holding to be twisted up, so the doctor cried out, sharp, involuntary, pained. And then a scuffle, feet sliding; and Bruce realised, with his last bright second of uncommanded attention, that he was fighting for his life and Crane was not.

They lurched, entwined; Crane's feet kicking and stabbing at the back of his knees, Crane's hair in his face. An arm smashed, brutal, against his cheek and he jerked back, lost his balance for a second.

Batman reached out, lunged for Crane's neck and Bruce, fighting his own anger back for just long enough to stop himself, was falling. He realised, with a sudden blinding flash of memory, that Crane would not let go when they hit the surface.

Then the water came up for him like a jagged block of ice; unforgiving, breath taking. The current trying to suck him under; tugging at his body, at the folds of the cape wrapped around him. Blackness above and below, only Crane's fingers still locked around his throat. And then Crane's face, strangely peaceful in triumph, his eyes smiling as the water dragged them down towards the pipe; towards the tunnel.

There was a roaring in his ears; a darkness rising up to meet him. He thrashed against Crane's hands but they held true. His lungs were on fire, the breath had been half knocked out of him in the fall. He had smashed an arm against the edge as they went over and there was a thin cloud of red beside his face, but the numbness was starting to take hold of him and soon he would succumb to that lassitude. Tiredness and injuries and the cold; the seductive temptation not to fight. To close his eyes and go down to a place without pain, without all this terrible terrible hurt.

With the last of his strength, the very last, he managed to get a hand into his belt. Get his fingers down around the butt of the grapnel gun and pray like hell that the water would not have affected the mechanism. And fire, blindly behind him, hoping against hope that there would be something, something solid and permanent. One long moment of hope, and his chest exploding and then, thank god, the jerk of something firm. There was a violent twist, one that damn near yanked his shoulder out from its socket. Then his head came bursting out above the water and he gasped and spat.

Around his neck he felt Crane's fingers slipping; that dark strength ebbing away into the cold embrace of the water. He looked down, down into the blackness and the cold. Into that quiet face. Watched as Crane slowly slid away from him; as the current sucked him down, away towards that final tunnel. And Batman let him go. But Bruce couldn't do that.

He dived back under, a quick half hitch of the cable over his wrist to secure him. The psychiatrist's body was spinning out of reach, arms flung wide, his hair a gloomy stain on dark water. The current was stronger down below the surface, an insistent drag against him, as if he was being blown by a strong wind, that same feeling of powerlessness. The deafening noise all around him, the fear and the exhilaration and the exhaustion. And then Bruce found Crane's thin lifeless hand, and inch by agonizing inch he pulled them both slowly back to the surface.

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	29. Stay down, and keep evil away

And this _really_ is it for tonight. Once again, thanks for the reads and the reviews. If you enjoyed, then let me know :-). Or not. Whichever. ;-)

xx

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Bruce's eyes opened onto a lazily spinning ceiling fan. He watched the blades cut slowly through the air, and wondered if this was to be his Vietnam flashback moment. His flashbacks tended to be a little . . . different. He was soaked through, soaked right down to the bone. Even his hair, tucked away beneath the mask, felt wet. And the water was as cold as ice and the ache of it sucked away at his strength and left him drained and empty. His chest was burning.

Away to his left something coughed and wheezed, a retching miserable cough like a dying sheep. He let his eyes linger on the oddly restful whir of the fan for a second longer, focusing his eyes on the soft hypnotic shimmy of the central bolt. The floor beneath his back was firm and strangely comfortable. You know you're tired, he thought vaguely, when the cement starts to feel like an eiderdown coverlet. And you could just lie there and close your eyes and let it all slip slowly into the dark.

He could have watched the ceiling fan spin forever. Anything else seemed like more trouble and effort than his body had left in it. If this was what dying felt like, then it wasn't nearly as bad as most people made out.

But he had unfinished business. Business which was giving the depressing impression that it would remain unfinished for a long time yet. Business which seemed to be coughing it's lungs up onto the floor a few feet away.

With an effort that seemed hopelessly disproportionate to the effect it actually achieved he rolled onto one side and looked around him dizzily.

Crane was down on his knees beside the opening to the storm drain, still fighting for breath, still coughing hard. Bruce could only imagine the agony that coughing like that must be inflicting on the doctor's recently broken ribs and he winced in involuntary sympathy. Watching seemed unpleasantly intrusive. So he looked down at the floor and waited for the sounds to subside.

Ten minutes later the doctor's breathing was merely torn sobs, the occasional cough still forcing him to double over. He had lain down on his side, curled up like a sick dog, but his eyes were open now and he was studying Bruce without expression. His face was almost pure white in the shadow, lips a smudged line of grey.

"Aren't you going to thank me?" Bruce was alarmed by how insubstantial, how un-Batman his voice sounded. "I believe I may just have saved your life."

The doctor shot him a look of purest loathing and he didn't blame him. Unforgivable really.

He rose stiffly to his feet, shaking a little to dislodge the water that still seemed to be pooling in every available spot. Everything hurt, but no more than he had expected. Frankly he was amazed that they had both survived that last little experience. He could still feel the toxin working inside his mind, feel it in the way he jerked his head at every clank and clatter in the roof, at every little creak from the walkway above them. But the cold water had washed away the sweat and the smell of fear. And he was past that now. It was finally time to go home.

He walked up to Crane's small prone figure and extended his arm down to help the doctor up to his feet. Crane's hand lashed shakily out at him in an unmistakable 'no' and he started and backed away, feeling foolish. How little had really changed.

He watched impatiently as the doctor slowly struggled upright, standing unsteadily in a small pool of water. The clothes were sodden, shapeless, the spare lines of the psychiatrist's body all too clear beneath the wet fabric. Jutting hipbones, the rise and fall of the ribcage trapped under the shirt. The pale face so oddly peaceful and composed, the body supported by pride and an iron will alone. Grey lips trembling.

Bruce gestured clumsily towards the door, water still dripping from his arms, still running off the cowl in little icy rivulets across his chin. The cape clung to his back in a heavy mass, clutching at his shoulders. He had never been more grateful for the suit and its multipurpose fabric. Amazingly he was almost warm, even though he was still soaking wet. Just looking at Crane let him know how bad it could have been.

It was only a short walk back to the car, but Crane made it last an unreasonably long time. Every few minutes he would have to stop to cough and the coughing would force him to his knees and Bruce was guiltily grateful that the sound of the water and the generator drowned out the worst of the noise.

As they finally approached the Batmobile he let his feet kick a few stones up from the floor, warning the two men at the car of their approach. Alfred span quickly around, the heavy shotgun almost at his shoulder, before he saw that it was Bruce and his face began to relax.

"You were gone a long time," he said, flatly. And Bruce thought that he'd heard that line somewhere before.

Crane was slowly coming through the doorway behind him, an uncertain stagger in his walk like a meths drinker, one hand tangled in his hair. His feet dragged along the ground, tiny scraping noises. Bruce turned gratefully towards him, unable to sustain Alfred's level gaze.

The psychiatrist had stopped halfway through the arch, leaning propped against a doorpost, staring blankly at the Batmobile. Fox looked up at him with obvious fascination, mingled with a partially concealed revulsion and Bruce had to admit that Crane wasn't looking his most prepossessing. He wondered where the glasses had gone, although he was fairly certain that they were more by way of a prop than a necessity.

Clearly neither Alfred nor Fox was going to actually comment on the fact that he was still dragging Crane around with him. And thank Christ for that, he thought wearily.

"Hello Alfred." The psychiatrist's voice was weak but still disconcerting and Bruce, turning back towards the car, was half surprised by the distaste that curled Alfred's lips. In the temporary silence he heard Crane slide down the doorpost behind him and crumple like a folded doll onto the ground.

Fox raised an eyebrow, carefully inspecting the state of the Batsuit, the condition of the doctor's dripping clothes. "I'm almost afraid to ask what you have been doing."

"Spelunking," Bruce said shortly. He saw the quick complicit grin that streaked over Fox's face like summer lightning, and he turned back to deal with the psychiatrist, momentarily gratified.

The doctor was curled into a tight ball, just where he had fallen, shivering violently. Bruce could hear his teeth chattering and he wished that they had thought to equip the Batmobile with something more than a basic first aid kit. The blanket he had wrapped Rachel in was back at the cave and his eyes searched the room for something, anything he could throw around the psychiatrist. Soft furnishings seemed to be thin on the ground.

He sighed, and crouched down beside Crane. He remembered only too well the way the psychiatrist had once fought against him, all the way from his basement to the pavement. Like a small frightened animal, struggling crazily for its freedom. Knowing what he now knew about Crane's feelings regarding human contact he wasn't surprised at all. More amazed that neither of them had been hurt.

"Dr Crane?" He wasn't even sure if the psychiatrist was still conscious. In a way it would almost be easier if he had passed out, even though he knew only too well that in this state unconsciousness might be a one way ticket.

For a second the shivering almost stopped. Trust Crane to still be functioning, he thought, both irritated and impressed, even after everything that had happened. Why could nothing ever be easy?

He reached behind his back and unfastened his cape, shaking it out. He was pleased to notice that the black fabric was almost dry. Fox had done a good job with this one. The psychiatrist had barely even noticed that he'd moved. Behind the doorway something scuffled in the rafters. Pigeons, Bruce thought and he was happy to find that his heart rate had scarcely risen.

He draped it carefully over Crane; ignoring the sudden jerk of tension, the sharp intake of breath. Alfred looked up at them for a second, concern clearly lining his face. Bruce shook his head very slightly, and after a second Fox beckoned him away.

Crane's hands were clenched so tightly that he could see stars of white spreading out over the knuckles, whiter even than the pale skin. The veins beneath the surface were blue and clear, a delicate tracery. The doctor's nails were bitten and ragged, a few red strips of skin running down from the tips of the fingers. They looked painfully sore.

"Get up." He was too tired to observe any kind of social niceties now. Alfred and Fox were loading the last of the barrels into the Tumbler, carefully slotting the metal drum in between the three they'd already managed to get on board. Even shock and icy water couldn't quite take the edge off Crane's shaky sarcasm. "Oh my. Fully armed and trunk space too."

Bruce choked and bit back on the smile, uncomfortably aware that both Fox and Alfred were looking at him as if he'd just sworn in church. Don't bond with the prisoner, he thought, and he waited for Crane to catch up while he wondered just who he was fooling.

The tiny space behind the front seats of the Tumbler had never been designed with passengers in mind. Alfred held the car door apologetically open, pulling the seat forward with one hand. "I'm afraid this may be somewhat on the cosy side."

Bruce stepped aside to let Crane climb up into the car and settle into one side of the bare well behind the leather seat backs, knees pressed up into his chest, Bruce's cape wrapped around him. The psychiatrist's eyes were barely open, his lips horribly blue against the dull white of his skin. Cosy might not be such a bad thing. He was beginning to fear that the doctor might not make the journey home.

At his shoulder Alfred gave the tiniest of suggestive coughs. "Might I suggest that we move on?"

He was still far too awkward around Alfred to risk making a joke. So he simply nodded and climbed in, even though really he would have preferred a few minutes to himself.

Crane shrank away from him and he tried his hardest to keep to his own side of the car. There wasn't much room at all, certainly not enough for the two of them, even given the tiny amount of space that Crane was occupying. His legs were tucked up uncomfortably, no chance to stretch out.

He reached up and pulled off his mask, running his fingers through his wet hair, tenderly feeling the bruise on the side of his head. It had only been a couple of nights ago that he'd flung the same mask across the car in disgust. So much had changed since then.

A few moments passed before Alfred and then Fox got into the car, doors slamming shut, the sound making Crane flinch back violently against the corner of the car. Bruce wondered exactly how many pills the doctor had missed. Whether there were any left in the bag in the Batcave. Certainly he wasn't going back down into Arkham's basement tonight. The psychiatrist would have to manage without, assuming he was going to survive at all.

And suddenly he found that he did care. Crane was his responsibility now. He had made that decision days ago. Now he just had to deal with the consequences. There was no-one he could hand the doctor over to, no-one who would understand that really there were worse people out there.

The car started up with a jolt and he braced his feet against the floor so as not to slide across. Crane's head came up briefly, the blue eyes wide and confused in the sudden noise. He wasn't sure how much the doctor understood what was going on, where they were going.

"It's alright," he said, as gently as he could, feeling ridiculous as he did so. It was a stupid thing to say.

The doctor's eyes met his without any real sense of urgency, and he searched them vainly for some sign of comprehension. There was only alarm and bewilderment and for some unknown reason that made him feel angry. He had come to genuinely admire Crane's work, admire the lightning twists and turns of the damaged brain that he could barely keep up with. He couldn't bear to think of all that being gone forever. And the thought crossed his mind that perhaps the doctor was bluffing again.

Then the car swung round a corner and down over a step and the psychiatrist was thrown unceremoniously against him, hard enough to send electric shockwaves of pain racing up through Bruce's chest. He heard Crane gasp at the same time as he did and the tiny whimper which followed so quickly behind the gasp hit him more even than the pain in his ribs. This was stupid. They couldn't travel the whole way like this. Something would have to be done.

So he stuck out his arm, far too quickly for Crane to even see it coming and wrapped it tightly around the psychiatrist's shoulders. The doctor flinched and struggled against it wildly, not quite panic, but more than close enough. His breathing was ragged and the force of his efforts to escape made him cough again, struggling to gasp at the air. His shoulder banged hard against the wall of the car.

"It's alright," Bruce said again, not because he thought it was, but because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Bruce." The voice was very small. "Don't . . ."

And he had never heard Crane sound like that. The tiny crack of a light bulb breaking.

But there was nothing else he could do. He was a clumsy fool when it came to this kind of thing and he knew it. But he didn't see any other way. He was damned if he was going to let Crane come to any more harm, sliding about in the back of the car all the way home.

The psychiatrist struggled on, heartbreakingly, weakly pulling away from him until finally, mercifully, his strength was exhausted. Bruce was only grateful that there was nothing in the back of the car with which the doctor could improvise a weapon or he knew for sure he would be dead before they ever reached Wayne Manor.

The small body shivered and tensed, jerking under his arm, uncontrollable floods of shaking washing over the narrow shoulders. He could feel the fragile bones beneath the milk white skin, the cold that was burning against his own warm flesh.

He let the warmth flow out of his body, ignoring the pins and needles that were beginning to prick at him, the numbness spreading up towards his elbow. He didn't dare move. From here on in it was up to Crane how much he chose to take. Whatever problems the doctor might have he was more than smart enough to realize that Bruce's body heat could easily be the only thing that might save him. And more than tired enough to submit to a risk he might not normally have accepted. And little by little Crane's neck came edging shyly back to press against his arm, a few damp tendrils of hair curling down onto the Batsuit.

Fox took the car round another corner, gunned the engine and Bruce felt the surface under the wheels briefly slide away and assumed they must be crossing the river. A second later the car touched down with a thump and a crash that jolted both of them forward against the back of the seats.

Alfred's face appeared instantly between the headrests, mildly concerned. He looked down into Bruce's unmasked face and then stared coldly past him at the shivering figure that Bruce was holding awkwardly in the curve of one arm. Bruce shrugged as casually as he could manage, trying to look like it was a perfectly normal position. He had a feeling he would be hearing more about this later. Thank God Crane hadn't completely panicked when he'd grabbed him.

A second's quick scrutiny and Alfred was gone. Bruce heard him say something over the engine noise to Fox, and a moment later Fox's quick dry laugh. He smiled ruefully. He wasn't sure his reputation was going to survive the journey unmarked.

And finally Crane's head fell forwards to lie reluctantly against his chest, a slight weight like a resting sparrow, his scratchy heartbeat clattering against Bruce's own. Bruce stayed perfectly still, bracing his feet against the back of the seat. The psychiatrist's breathing was still uneven, his head fluttering restlessly against the tight black fabric of the Batsuit, hands scratching at each other. Bruce wondered how quickly he would have broken, if Batman had only come up with the idea of holding him rather than hitting him. But he didn't really believe that Crane would ever break.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and he wasn't just apologizing for the arm over the doctor's shoulders.

In the front of the car Alfred and Fox were talking in low voices, their conversation lost in the roar of the engine. He thanked an unusually merciful God for that small blessing. Some things were best unheard. On both sides.

Against his chest the psychiatrist's damp wet hair lay in tangled drifts of darkness, the street lights sending chunks of orange light skidding over the shadows. He could just see the edge of Crane's lips, enough to see that they were still tightly drawn and he tried not to hold his own breath. To breathe slowly, calmly, a soothing regular rhythm.

Crane murmured something and his shoulder twitched a little against Bruce's encircling arm, his head a dead weight now, rolling with the movements of the car. And Bruce was too tired to think any more. Even as he looked down at the doctor's still drenched body, the wet clothes clinging and sticking like tissue paper to the slender limbs, his eyes began irresistibly to close.

The first few times he jerked them open, blinking and staring in an attempt to stay awake. Fighting. But the swaying rhythm of the car was hypnotic, the seduction of being driven, of being, finally, completely unable to control his destination, sucking at his powers of resistance. It wasn't even possible to see what way they were going. He could learn to like that.

He was in safe hands now. They both were. And with a final look down at Crane's still shivering form he braced himself a little tighter against the back of the seats and let his eyes close.

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And again, thanks for reading. Further updates to follow soon. Don't despair, we've almost reached the end . . .


	30. You can't kick when you're down

And it is now officially the next day. What? It's true ;-).

Besides, hanging onto stuff that's written only ever results in massive hard disk failure, followed by the back-up copy being eaten by dogs. Or mice. Or something. It wouldn't be the first time.

And so. The chapter before the penultimate chapter. Although . . . there's a bit of an issue with that.

In which Dr. Crane is irritating.

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It seemed all too soon that Bruce was being shaken awake. Alfred's hand was on his shoulder, although Alfred's eyes were warily watching Crane, who had retreated back to his own side of the car. Fox had brought the Batmobile up to the front of the cottage and normally Bruce would have felt some vague sense of irritation at the lack of security. But he supposed tonight was a special case.

Alfred helped him up out of the car, his legs impossibly stiff, seemingly every muscle in his body rebelling against his instruction to move. He waited for Crane to climb out; stretching as he did so, experimenting with the limitations of pain. Giving Crane every opportunity to think that Bruce wasn't nearly as beat as he must appear.

Fox gave him a quick tight salute. A smile. "I'll be seeing you soon," he said, and it wasn't a question. Then he climbed back into the Batmobile and swung it expertly around. Headed away back into the night, into the dark smudge of trees at the bottom of the hill.

Bruce wondered if he should feel some sense of curiosity about where the car was going, but he knew Fox well enough to be assured that everything would be taken care of. And then it was just him and Crane and Alfred. There was a short pause.

"Well," Crane said brightly, "this is awkward, isn't it?" For a second Bruce felt a deep mental connection with Alfred, a shared desire to have Dr. Crane as far away as possible. Ideally gagged and medicated.

He wasn't ungrateful that the doctor was there; that they had some kind of combined focus, even if Crane would hardly have been his first choice. But the man was like a wasp; Bruce was happier having him where he could see him. And it would hardly have helped the situation to suggest that he should return Crane to the storeroom in the Batcave where he had been so recently imprisoned.

In the end the kitchen was warm and comfortable enough for Bruce to temporarily lose all interest in anything else. Alfred brought him clothes and he stripped gratefully out of the Batsuit. Crane was almost dry now and once Bruce had ascertained that all the knives were safely stored away he felt safe enough to collapse into the sofa. The doctor perched on the edge of a kitchen chair, still disconcertingly alert and alarmingly pale. His eyes were fever bright, his lips set in a worryingly cheerful smile. After a brief moment of resistance he even submitted to having his finger rebandaged, bowing his head in a display of compliance which set Bruce's teeth on edge.

Bruce watched him distrustfully. At some point all of them were going to need sleep; and, troubled though he was by how Alfred might take to the idea, the only way he could think of arranging the matter was to tie Crane up. Preferably to something extremely solid that was bolted to the ground.

In the background the butler was moving around with his customary purposefulness, and once again Bruce realised exactly how much Alfred was a part of who he was. What he was. Alfred remembered his parents far better than Bruce ever would. He could hardly bear to take his thoughts back to that moment in the cave; just thinking about it made his fists tighten.

And now here they were. And there were things he still hadn't told him, although he was quite sure Alfred had seen the papers and drawn his own conclusions. "TWO KILLED IN VIGILANTE ROOFTOP HORROR." He could imagine the headlines now; the poisonous mixture of truth and lies. Gordon "keeping things quiet", and all the time doubting his own judgment, believing that he had made a horrible mistake and that it might be one which dragged the city further down.

"A shower, sir?" Alfred's voice had lost none of its politeness. There was even some warmth there and Bruce wondered just how much Alfred knew or guessed about Crane and what had really happened. Or how much Fox and he had seen on their journey through the Narrows.

"No, thank you, Alfred." He tried to find a way to make the words say more; to say "I'm sorry," without having to say it in front of Crane. And really he would quite happily have sacrificed an arm, or a rib maybe, for a shower, but there was no way he was leaving the psychiatrist alone with Alfred. Especially in this mood, shotgun or no shotgun.

"Shower, Dr. Crane?"

Bruce closed his eyes. There was hospitality and then there was hospitality. Crane was already wearing his clothes, he was damned if he was going to let him use his soap.

"Shouldn't you remove the razors first?" Crane grinned, the disarmingly helpful grin of a man with nothing left to lose and a history of anti-psychotic medication. "Just in case?"

Bruce winced. Of all the personas he had seen Dr. Crane assume, this one was by far the most irritating. And exhausting. He wondered if Crane was planning to niggle them to death. It just might work.

Alfred shrugged and turned away, back to the kettle and the stove. Bruce kept his eyes down, just enough to glance at Crane, to see his face without being observed. And what he saw there made his hardened heart crack a little. The brittle shell of bravado Crane was keeping up (and Bruce remembered the cost of a similar show, not so long ago, and he felt sick to his stomach) was only that. Behind the mask there was something more desperate, something darker. It was that same look he had seen there when he held the gun up to that pale face; that same look of longing. For an instant Crane's eyes met his, guard blown away, heart-stoppingly open - and then that glassy grin was back as if nothing else had ever been.

He bit his lip. What was it he had thought in the car? Crane was his responsibility now and he had to be prepared to deal with that. Whatever it might mean.

Alfred placed a glass of whisky on the table beside him and he looked up, smiling to say thank you, for an instant his concerns about Crane blocking out other more painful memories. And the smile that met his was genuine and only slightly tinged with regret and the relief that washed over him made him generous. He got to his feet, stretched. Poured out a second measure of whisky into another glass.

"Crane?"

The doctor looked up at him, all mild surprise and charmed delight. "For me? How kind."

Bruce sighed. Sometimes the only way to face a problem was to meet it head on. It wasn't really his style. But he couldn't have the conversation he needed to with Alfred standing there. It wouldn't be fair. It was one of the rules, really.

He gestured to the stairs leading up to the rooftop terrace. "Move," he said, abruptly, and then when Crane hesitated, more firmly. "Move."

"Well, as you insist." Crane pouted a little, eyelashes fluttering like a flattered society beauty. "I'm sure I will be quite safe with you." Bruce gritted his teeth. Crane was always at his best when playing to a sympathetic audience.

The doctor made his way to the base of the steps, a little shaky, glass in hand, and Bruce wondered, too late, always too late, about the wisdom of giving him anything with potential cutting edges. But he'd made his decision and it was too late to turn back on it now.

Alfred looked at him, a little suspiciously. "Will you be requiring anything else, sir?"

Bruce shook his head. "If we need anything, we'll call," he said, and he kept his voice purposefully expressionless. Crane wasn't going to read anything into the situation that Bruce could avoid, although he knew his acting skills were amateur in comparison to the doctor's.

Alfred nodded. "I will be just here." His voice was firm and Bruce felt rather than saw Crane's lips twist a little; disappointment or amusement, it was anyone's guess. Then he gestured once more to the stairs and followed Crane out into the clean night air.

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	31. I've got no desire to use you, you know

Yeah. Check in at the bottom ;-)

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There was enough of a breeze coming off the sea to make the air on the roof pleasantly cool. Above the side of the house facing away from the orange glow of Gotham the stars were glinting like tiny chips of quartz. They sat down, one on either edge of the terrace that spanned the roof space. Bruce took off his coat and laid it down beside him on the ledge.

For once Crane was quiet, holding his glass in his freshly bandaged hand. He was looking out into the darkening night sky with an expression that Bruce didn't like to try to analyse. In the dusk his face was mostly made up of shadows, the strong lines of his cheekbones gleaming.

It was a strange face, Bruce thought. A curious mixture of strength and fragility. Not unlike Dr Crane's own personality, inasmuch as Bruce would ever come even close to understanding that. He knew that there was a good deal he did not know about the doctor; things that Crane concealed, deliberately or otherwise, from him.

Bruce swirled the whisky round the bottom of his glass. He wasn't even sure if Crane should be mixing alcohol with whatever else his system was pumped full of. But psychopharmacology was after all the doctor's special interest. If any one knew what effect that specific combination might have it would be Crane. He had never asked about the pills that seemed to form the staple item of Crane's sparse diet. He didn't want to know and he was pretty sure that he wasn't going to be told even if he asked nicely.

Whatever those little multi-coloured tablets the doctor was knocking back so regularly were, he was fairly certain that they weren't just aspirin. He didn't trust him, but at least now he knew roughly what to expect from him. A Crane unleashed from the controlling effects of the drugs, well, that was another thing entirely.

But even with the pills, and there were seemingly more of those every time the doctor's hand slipped into his pockets, Crane's periods of lucidity were becoming shorter and less frequent. He wasn't the only one who had noticed. One glimpse of the distress in the man's eyes as he began to slide away from relative sanity towards whatever it was that lay on the far side of Jonathan Crane's mind had been enough to convince Bruce that this development was less than welcome to either of them.

The memory of the first day, before he had handed over the bag of drugs, that memory was still vivid. Even after he had given Crane the pills, wondering as he did so what exactly there was left to save, there was still nothing normal about the man.

Now Crane was looking across the roof top at him, his gaze shrewd enough to convince Bruce that their thoughts were not far apart in substance. "What do you want me to say Bruce?" The tone was light but the eyes were far from playful. "I'm not getting better yet."

"Do you need more pills?" And he knew as soon as he said it, the moment the words left his mouth, that he shouldn't have rushed it out like that, that he'd as good as told Crane out loud just what he'd been thinking about.

But Crane seemed not to be offended, his pale face still turned towards the rapidly rising darkness in the east. "Pills can only do so much." Again, the soft voice was deceptively casual. "Every crazy in Arkham took their pills. They didn't all get let out."

Yes, Bruce thought, because you didn't choose to let them go. But he said only, "Is there anything else?" And wished that it hadn't sounded so harsh.

"It's so pretty out here." The doctor's voice was wistful, but beneath the wistfulness Bruce could hear the tone of the voice Crane used when he was no longer himself. "Are you going to let me go?" And the question was abrupt but not unexpected.

Bruce sighed. "I can't just let you go. I know what you can do. I've seen what you are capable of." He knew full well that Crane was using his talents to manipulate him yet again. That he might as well just get 'Bruce Wayne - sucker' tattooed permanently onto his forehead.

There was a short silence. Then the other man turned to look directly at him and the big blue eyes opened deep and wide beneath the long black lashes.

"Oh no, no, no." The voice was very soft now, soothing but with a cold sharp edge like a steel blade underneath. "You couldn't even _begin_ to imagine everything I'm capable of."

Bruce felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck start to prickle. Started to wonder if being up there, so far up there, all alone, on the roof, unarmed and with a dangerous mad man was really such a good idea after all. Saw how once again Crane had closed the door of the trap so quietly behind him that he had never even seen what was happening until it was too late.

Crane was smiling at him, not a nice smile, not the sweet sparkling expression that Bruce had seen before. There was nothing gentle about this smile. "What? Nothing to say for yourself now?" he sneered. "I thought you were smarter than this. Frankly I'm disappointed in you."

Bruce put his glass down on the ledge beside him, his hands moving slowly but his mind running feverishly over his options. In a straight fight he was sure that he would win, his weight and height were serious advantages. And he was sure that Crane knew that as well as he did. So that wasn't going to be the way it went.

"Why are you doing this?" Bruce tried to keep his voice as level as Crane's, getting carefully to his feet.

Crane looked at him as if he couldn't believe what he just heard. "Newsflash Batboy. Crazy here. Reasons come as extra."

"I can get you help." Bruce worked hard to sound reasonable. "I can get you more drugs. It doesn't have to be like this . . ."

Dr Crane moved so quickly that even Bruce was not able to step away fast enough. The slap burned high on his cheek, he could feel the hot blood rushing up to the skin that covered the bone. Crane was luminous with rage, his eyes snapping blue sparks. He was very close to Bruce's face when he hissed "But it does."

He turned abruptly away, fiercely pacing the narrow confines of the roof like a caged animal. His anger seemed to be directed as much at himself, for having broken the stranglehold of his own formidable self control, as at anyone else.

After a moment he looked up again, seemingly as shocked as Bruce at what had just happened. But Bruce knew far better now than to take anything that the doctor said or did at face value. Sure, he would humour Crane up to a point. But this time, if the situation went Bruce's way, there would be no more mercy.

The Batman that Bruce could barely control would have killed Crane long ago, and up till now Bruce had stopped him. Because he understood, as much as anyone could understand, how it felt. He could no more give up Batman than Crane could give up the Scarecrow. That was who he was now, a part of him he could sometimes direct but never erase. The shots that had brought his father to the ground had killed more than just his parents and created more than two immaculate graves in a quiet churchyard.

And that was why, in the end, as much as it pained him to admit it, there was only one answer. He had known from the beginning how it would have to finish. He couldn't condemn Crane to a life of semiconscious incarceration in Arkham's grey corridors or those of whatever grim institution might arise to replace it. He had come too close to that himself.

Crane looked at him with an expression of scornful pity, one corner of his mouth twisted into a pensive smile. The anger in the doctor's face had changed to an exhausted kind of grace, his pale skin glowing in the last of the evening light, every bruise a dark smear against the white. "I asked you for something once. In Arkham."

"You tricked me."

"You let yourself be tricked." Crane span away from him, his face working hard. "I was ready . . ."

In Bruce's head the dream of the previous night played over and over like an unwanted in-flight movie, Crane's eyes ice blue pools of need, the sharp smell of the cordite, the blood . . . the tired acceptance in the doctor's last expression. His body slipping away in the flood.

Crane's hands were deep in his pockets and when he drew them out they were filled with multicoloured pills. He turned back round, held them in front of him for a second, long fingers cramped together like claws, the pale strip of bandage starting to unwind from his left hand. Then he let them go, watched them scatter wildly across the tiles of the roof, red, white and blue, skidding into the furthest corners.

"Not man enough to finish the job?" The doctor's voice was a pale imitation of the venomous tones Bruce had heard him use in the past. He could see tiny red spots of blood glistening on Crane's bee sting lips. The last of the pills rolled past Bruce's feet.

"Crane . . ."

"For now." There was a terrible resignation in the doctor's voice. "I can't stay like this forever." He took a step backwards, his eyes locked on Bruce's face. Shining. "I can't stay here forever. Don't make me."

"I have no choice." The frustration filling Bruce's voice surprised even him.

And Crane smiled at him, that little boy lost smile, and this time it reached his eyes. "Bruce. There's always a choice. Let me help you."

Before he had a chance to react Crane had hopped nimbly up onto the low parapet that ran around the edge of the roof. He looked across at Bruce and his eyes danced. "We can come to some arrangement." He twisted away, balancing gracefully on the stone rail and looked out over the drop like a curious child. "It's a long way down."

"Crane . . ." Bruce's voice shook a little. "This is not the answer."

"But isn't this what you want?" Crane was standing very still now, frail but determined, precariously poised on the edge of the roof. Behind his slender silhouette the streetlights of the city burned into the sky like a second sunset. Bruce's mouth was dry.

"Wait . . ."

"Give me one good reason not to do it." Crane's voice cracked briefly, the fragile snap of a breaking bone.

And Bruce actually believed that for once Crane meant what he said. All the emotion of the last week rushed over him in a riptide of dark water, the pain and the loneliness and the relentless tug of his duty. The feeling of isolation, like an endless drop through a cloudless night. There was only one other person who could possibly begin to know what that felt like. With a sudden sharp twist of apprehension he realised that there might be more than one answer after all.

"Stay," he said, and his voice sounded strangely small and foolish, as if he'd honestly believed that what he was going to say would make any difference at all.

Crane's eyes were wide and lost and hopeless, and just for a second Bruce thought, but we have come so far. This is not the end. "This is not how it ends," he said out loud, stumbling a little. And the doctor looked down at him, confused and hurt, bitten lips and pale skin, his hair blown dark and soft across his face.

"Isn't it?"

Bruce shook his head; kept his voice even, light. "Giving up caring is easy," he said, and it was true.

Crane smiled, that sad sweet smile; that grey ghost of wistfulness tugging at the corners of his eyes. "You're trying to tell me this is hope?" He looked away, shaking his head. "Once you told me to finish it. Now you're trying to talk me down. But really, you just don't want the inconvenience of my death on your conscience." His voice had changed again, from sweetness to scorn.

And Bruce, who had been as close to breaking point as he ever wished to come, who had come perilously close to losing every single thing he had left, finally, finally allowed the anger that he had been holding back for so long to show. His voice almost perfectly cold. Almost Batman's voice.

"Fine. Do it. But don't pretend it doesn't matter. And don't pretend that it means you win. Because it does. And you don't." For a second he hated himself almost more than he could have believed possible. Then he looked up at Crane and saw the shock on the pale face. The surprise. In other circumstances it might have felt almost like a victory.

"Oh, for Christ's sake." Cautiously he reached out to touch Crane's trembling shoulder; and to his relief the doctor made no move towards the edge. Gently, his hand tracing the swollen marks his own fists had made, Bruce turned Crane's young tired face slowly around and looked up at him. He wondered what exactly he thought he was doing.

For a second he was staring straight into the heavy lidded blue eyes and it was like that first time, that time after the toxin, when he had looked down at Crane and Crane had looked back at him and he had been sorry - But Batman and the Scarecrow were something else entirely. And this . . . wasn't right. But it wasn't wrong either.

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Right. At this point there's a decision to be made. For some people, this is probably a good stopping point. In some ways, it's the end. And in other ways, it isn't. Make up your own mind, I can't do it for you. And I'm not going to spoiler what happens in the next chapter.

If you want to stop here then thanks so much for coming along for the ride. It's been a real pleasure and that's largely down to youse all. Cheers.

And if you decide you want to go on, then there is one more chapter. Thanks.


	32. I'm never going to know you now FINAL

Somewhat to Bruce's surprise, after the storm there was calm. They sat side by side on the ledge, looking out over the sparkle and gleam of Gotham on the horizon. He'd gone downstairs, picked up the bottle and brought it back with him. This time they didn't need glasses.

Nothing had really been permanently fixed. Really, if he could have brought himself to accept it, he had always known that the doctor was truly insane. Much more so than any strength of medication was going to do anything other than mask. Tonight had finally forced him to face up to what that was going to mean. For both of them. And right now it would have to be enough for him. What he couldn't hope to cure he was going to have to live with.

The whisky burned a long clean line of pain through his tired chest. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed the bottle.

Now that the last of the sunlight was finally gone the evening was turning colder. Crane shivered a little in the chilly night air, hunching his slender shoulders together. With the innate instinct of a man who'd been raised a gentleman, an instinct that he knew was going to lead to an sharp and immediate rejection, Bruce turned round to pick up the coat that had dropped to the floor earlier.

And suddenly everything was terribly, terribly wrong. He heard the glass that he had put down on the edge of the parapet opposite scrape across the tiles a split second before it crashed to the floor. Looking up he saw the black clothed men who were so quickly climbing over the low walls, tried to count them, six, seven?

Before he even had a chance to stand up they were already on the terrace coming rapidly towards him, an aggressive assurance in their speed and purpose. He straightened up, the balls of his feet pressed hard to the tiles, the adrenalin hot slamming against the small of his back.

Dr Crane, who had spun round like a startled rabbit at the sound of the glass smashing, was standing by his side. Almost unconsciously Bruce shifted to stand a little way in front of him, blocking the slim body with his own. He ignored the small offended sniff which came from behind his shoulder.

"Don't move." he ordered Crane, his voice harsh. The space on the roof was too limited for fighting man to man in the dark, he didn't want to inadvertently knock the doctor over the edge. No weapons. The last thing he needed was have somebody in the way to fall over. In the three seconds before the first thug reached him he had time to wonder if Crane had planned this all along. Then he was fighting for his life and little questions like that ceased to matter as much.

It took only an instant for him to realise yet again exactly how dependant he'd become on being Batman. The effect of his appearance, the weapons, the costume and the way it adapted easily to his every move. The comforting protection of the armour on his chest, the firm touch of the mask tight over his face. He was naked and exposed without it. And there were far too many of them for him to fight alone.

The first man went down easily enough but then there were three and even he could not keep them all at bay. Through the blur of movement, the sound and the fury of the fight, he knew that at least one had got past him but there was no time to turn.

The sudden crash from behind his back was loud enough to make both him and his attackers stop and look round.

Dr Crane was still standing, very pale, but the line of his mouth set firm, holding the jagged neck of the whisky bottle in one shaking hand. At his feet the body of one of the men was slumped in a heap, covered in shards of broken glass. He could see a patch of bright blood smeared on the back of the head. No, Crane wasn't ever as defenceless as he seemed, and the realisation made Bruce smile a little even as he turned back to take on his own enemies.

Unequal as things were he began to believe that this was a fight he could win, the three men beginning to weaken under his renewed attack. He pushed them harder towards the edge of the roof, his anger rising at the thought of the presumption, the arrogant boldness of these men in daring to take him on in his own home.

They fell back before him like children running from his rage and the warning that was beginning to scream like a siren in his brain had barely reached him when he saw the eighth man crouched silently in the corner of the terrace. He was holding what looked like a gun, but when he fired there was no sound other than that of Bruce's own laboured breathing.

There was a jarring instant of stabbing pain and then, surprisingly, there was none. He looked down dully at the tiny red dart that was sticking jauntily out from the muscle of his shoulder.

And realised his mistake. It wasn't him that they had come for.

Bruce's eyes went straight to Dr Crane, now pinned down between two balaclava clad heavies, arms twisted behind his back. There was a fierce pride in the look that came back, in the head that was held so high despite the obvious fear. Any question that he might have held a moment before about the doctor's innocence in the assault was instantly erased. The tallest of the attackers, features covered by a long black scarf, walked swiftly across the rooftop and stepped between him and his last glimpse of Crane's face.

Then the darkness of the drug slid over his body like a greasy wave and he went down into it without a murmur. As he fell he heard Crane cry out in pain, just once, and the sound followed him like the cold snap of a breaking bone. It was a sound Batman had never succeeded in prising from the doctor.

And then, then it was dark for a long time. Bad dreams forced him to run through shadowy places, far from the known reaches of his own sane mind. He was looking for something, something that had once been left behind. Every time he felt he was starting to come up to it another turn in the path would sweep him hopelessly away from his goal, and he couldn't even remember exactly what it was that he had wanted to find in the first place.

Time moved unutterably slowly. Until, finally, he remembered just enough to force him to start out on the long painful struggle back towards consciousness. Coming round was, he thought wryly, never the easy part. He didn't know exactly what he'd been shot full of this time, but he thought that Dr Crane might have recognised it. His brain felt as if it had been dragged through a wringer. His head _hurt_. The side of his body on which he had fallen was now pleading for the touch of something softer than the hard cold tiles of the roof. It took him more than one attempt to lift himself up far enough to see, as he had known that he would, that the terrace was completely empty.

He was lying among the broken fragments of the bottle, sharp tiny splinters embedded deep in his hands and arms. There seemed to be a lot more blood now than there had been when he fell. As he struggled to his feet the effort made him retch, again and again, the sour taste of the whisky rising up in his throat, dizziness forcing him to slow his movements.

The whole attack, he thought wonderingly, had had been so swift and silent that Alfred, sat down the stairs in the kitchen, could never have heard a thing. He looked numbly at the place where Crane had been standing such a little time before.

And a single piece of paper fell from the clear sky as he finally stood up, alone on the dark roof. It fluttered gently in the early autumn breeze before it dropped to the ground at his feet. He knelt to turn it over where it had landed on the glazed tiles, resting among the broken pieces of the bottle.

It was a small old fashioned patience card, the pattern on the back constructed from a mass of entwined snakes. And on the other side the dancing figure of the Joker stared up at him, a smile that was a shade closer to a sneer than a grin stretched across the painted face.

He picked it up and held it tightly in his bloody hand, and the cheap cardboard crumpled in his fist like a fallen leaf. Purposefully he moved to the edge of the parapet and looked out over the city.

"I will find you." he said, speaking the words out loud into the night air. Even this early in the year the first cold winds of winter were beginning to blow in from the sea fifty miles away over the hills. The night was still bright and moonlit.

Then the terrace was empty.

Fifteen minutes later Alfred jumped up from his chair to the sound of the Batmobile screaming in a blaze of light and engine noise across the lawns. Inside the big car Batman leant forward over the wheel, his eyes narrowed, his teeth clenched shut. And a wild storm of righteous vengeance blew on the sea wind towards the streets of Gotham.

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The End. Or, possibly, The Beginning.

Thanks so much for all the reads and reviews. Very much appreciated. HEARTS. And thanks again. It would never have been done without you.


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